Jean-Baptiste Say Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“The manner in which things exist and take place, constitutes what is called the nature of things; and a careful observation of the nature of things is the sole foundation of all truth.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“The sea and wind can at the same time convey my neighbour's vessel and my own.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“Whence it is evident that the remedy must be adapted to the particular cause of the mischief; consequently, the cause must be ascertained, before the remedy is devised.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“A much larger value is consumed in lettuces than in pineapples,throughout Europe at large; and the superb shawls of Cachemere are, in France, a very poor object in trade, in comparison with the plain cotton goods of Rouen.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“One product is always ultimately bought with another, even when paid for in the first instance with money.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“Demand and supply are the opposite extremes of the beam, whence depend the scales of dearness and cheapness; the price is the point of equilibrium, where the momentum of the one ceases, and that of the other begins.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“Valuation is vague and arbitrary, when there is no assurance that it will be generally acquiesced in by others.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“What is the motive which operates in every man's breast to counteract the impulse towards the gratification of his wants and appetites?”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“Nothing is more dangerous in practice, than an obstinate, unbending adherence to a system, particularly in its application to the wants and errors of mankind.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“It is a melancholy but an undoubted fact, that, even in the most thriving countries, part of the population annually dies of mere want. Not that all who perish from want absolutely die of hunger; though this calamity is of more frequent occurrence than is generally supposed.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“All travellers agree that protestant are both richer and more populous than catholic countries;and the reason is, because the habits of the former are more conducive to production.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“Opulent, civilized, and industrious nations, are greater consumers than poor ones, because they are infinitely greater producers.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“In times of political confusion, and under an arbitrary government, many will prefer to keep their capital inactive, concealed, and unproductive, either of profit or gratification, rather than run the risk of its display. This latter evil is never felt under a good government.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“The luxury of ostentation affords a much less substantial and solid gratification, than the luxury of comfort, if I may be allowed the expression.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“At Newfoundland, it is said, that dried cod performs the office of money”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“And let no government imagine, that, to strip them of the power of defrauding their subjects, is to deprive them of a valuable privilege. A system of swindling can never be long lived, and must infallibly in the end produce much more loss than profit.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“But what must be the character of that policy, which aims at national prosperity through the impoverishment of a large proportion of the home producers, with a view to supply foreigners at a cheaper rate, and give them all the benifet of the national privation and self denial?”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“capital cannot be more beneficially employed, then in strengthening and aiding the productive powers of nature.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“Some writers maintain arithmetic to be only the only sure guide in political economy; for my part, I see so many detestable systems built upon arithmetical statements, that I am rather inclined to regard that science as the instrument of national calamity.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“regulation is useful and proper, when aimed at the prevention of fraud or contrivance, manifestly injurious to other kinds of production, or to the public safety, and not at prescribing the nature of the products and the methods of fabrication.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“Nothing can be more idle than the opposition of theory to practice!”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“The property a man has in his own industry, is violated, whenever he is forbidden the free exercise of his faculties or talents, except insomuch as they would interfere with the rights of third parties.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“The theory of interest was wrapped in utter obscurity, until Hume and Smith dispelled the vapor.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“I'il n'est pas en notre pouvoir de changer la nature des choses. Il faut les йtudier telles qu'elles sont.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“Political economy has only become a science since it has been confined to the results of inductive investigation.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“Alas, how many have been persecuted for the wrong of having been right?”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“It is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say -
“The haggardness of poverty is everywhere seen contrasted with the sleekness of wealth, the exhorted labour of some compensating for the idleness of others, wretched hovels by the side of stately colonnades, the rags of indigence blended with the ensigns of opulence; in a word, the most useless profusion in the midst of the most urgent wants.”
-- Jean-Baptiste Say
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