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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

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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
Science
Matters
Beneficial
Running
Authority
Anarchy
Truth
Number
Republic
Ever
Usually
Opponents
Matter
Numbers
Error
Sedition
Great
Philosophy
Triumph
Despotic
Even
Greatest
Errors
Sciences
Long
Happiness
Calm
Opponent

More quotes by William Stanley Jevons

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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
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There are many portions of economical doctrine which appear to me as scientific in form as they are consonant with facts.
William Stanley Jevons
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Economists can never be free of from difficulties unless they will distinguish between a theory and the application of a theory.
William Stanley Jevons
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The point of equilibrium will be known by the criterion that an infinitely small amount of commodity exchanged in addition, at the same rate, will bring neither gain nor loss of utility.
William Stanley Jevons
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The whole result of continued labour is not often consumed and enjoyed in a moment the result generally lasts for a certain length of time. We must then conceive the capital as being progressively uninvested.
William Stanley Jevons
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It is clear that economics, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science.
William Stanley Jevons
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The difficulties of economics are mainly the difficulties of conceiving clearly and fully the conditions of utility.
William Stanley Jevons
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One of the first and most difficult steps in a science is to conceive clearly the nature of the magnitudes about which we are arguing.
William Stanley Jevons
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A little experience is worth much argument a few facts are better than any theory.
William Stanley Jevons
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Repeated reflection and inquiry have led me to the somewhat novel opinion, that value depends entirely upon utility.
William Stanley Jevons
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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
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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
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One of the most important axioms is, that as the quantity of any commodity, for instance, plain food, which a man has to consume, increases, so the utility or benefit derived from the last portion used decreases in degree. The decrease in enjoyment between the beginning and the end of a meal may be taken as an example.
William Stanley Jevons
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In short, I do not write for mathematicians, nor as a mathematician, but as an economist wishing to convince other economists that their science can only be satisfactorily treated on an explicitly mathematical basis.
William Stanley Jevons
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Over-production is not possible in all branches of industry at once, but it is possible in some as compared to others.
William Stanley Jevons
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Capital simply allows us to expend labour in advance.
William Stanley Jevons
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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
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I protest against deference to any man, whether John Stuart Mill, or Adam Smith, or Aristotle, being allowed to check inquiry. Our science has become far too much a stagnant one, in which opinions rather than experience and reason are appealed to.
William Stanley Jevons
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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
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Science arises from the discovery of Identity amid Diversity.
William Stanley Jevons