Quote

What capital I give for the spade merely replaces what the manufacturer had already invested in the expectation that the spade would be needed.

William Stanley Jevons

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William Stanley Jevons
Age: 46 †
Born: 1835
Born: September 1
Died: 1882
Died: August 13
Economist
Philosopher
Photographer
Statistician
City of Liverpool
Jevons
William Stanley
Spade
Needed
Replaces
Already
Spades
Give
Invested
Giving
Expectation
Would
Capital
Expectations
Manufacturer
Merely

More quotes by William Stanley Jevons

Image
You will perceive that economy, scientifically speaking, is a very contracted science it is in fact a sort of vague mathematics which calculates the causes and effects of man's industry, and shows how it may be best applied.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
Among minor alterations, I may mention the substitution for the name political economy of the single convenient term economics. I cannot help thinking that it would be well to discard, as quickly as possible, the old troublesome double-worded name of our science.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
My principal work now lies in tracing out the exact nature and conditions of utility. It seems strange indeed that economists have not bestowed more minute attention on a subject which doubtless furnishes the true key to the problems of economics.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
In matters of philosophy and science authority has ever been the great opponent of truth. A despotic calm is usually the triumph of error. In the republic of the sciences sedition and even anarchy are beneficial in the long run to the greatest happiness of the greatest number.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
Fertility of imagination and abundance of guesses at truth are among the first requisites of discovery but the erroneous guesses must almost of necessity be many times as numerous as those which prove well founded.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
I feel quite unable to adopt the opinion that the moment goods pass into the possession of the consumer they cease altogether to have the attributes of capital.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
A little experience is worth much argument a few facts are better than any theory.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
A spade may be made of any size, and if the same number of strokes be made in the hour, the requisite exertion will vary nearly as the cube of the length of the blade.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
The theory which follows is entirely based on a calculus of pleasure and pain and the object of economics is to maximize happiness by purchasing pleasure, as it were, at the lowest cost of pain.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
Logic should no longer be considered an elegant and learned accomplishment it should take its place as an indispensable study for every well-informed person.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
The calculus of utility aims at supplying the ordinary wants of man at the least cost of labour.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
PLEASURE and pain are undoubtedly the ultimate objects of the calculus of economics. To satisfy our wants to the utmost with the least effort - to procure the greatest amount of what is desirable at the expense of the least that is undesirable - in other words, to maximize pleasure, is the problem of economics.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
we often observe that there is abundance of capital to be had at low rates of interest, while there are also large numbers of artisans starving for want of employment.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
Economists can never be free of from difficulties unless they will distinguish between a theory and the application of a theory.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
Labour once spent has no influence on the future value of any article it isgone and lost for ever. In commerce bygones are forever bygones and we are alwaysstarting clearat each moment, judging the values of things with a view to future utility.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
Many persons entertain a prejudice against mathematical language, arising out of a confusion between the ideas of a mathematical science and an exact science. ...in reality, there is no such thing as an exact science.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
In any case I hold that there must arise a science of the development of economic forms and relations.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
It is clear that Economics, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science ... simply because it deals with quantities... As the complete theory of almost every other science involves the use of calculus, so we cannot have a true theory of Economics without its aid.
William Stanley Jevons
Image
We shall never have a science of economics unless we learn to discern the operation of law even among the most perplexing complications and apparent interruptions.
William Stanley Jevons