William Stanley Jevons Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
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“There are a multitude of allied branches of knowledge connected with mans condition; the relation of these to political economy is analogous to the connexion of mechanics, astronomy, optics, sound, heat, and every other branch more or less of physical science, with pure mathematics.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“Repeated reflection and inquiry have led me to the somewhat novel opinion, that value depends entirely upon utility.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“It is clear that economics, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“Fertility of imagination and abundance of guesses at the truth are among the first requisites of discovery.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“Value is the most invincible and impalpable of ghosts, and comes and goes unthought of, while the visible and dense matter remains as it was.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“It seems perfectly clear that Economy, if it is to be a science at all, must be a mathematical science. There exists much prejudice against attempts to introduce the methods and language of mathematics into any branch of the moral sciences. Most persons appear to hold that the physical sciences form the proper sphere of mathematical method, and that the moral sciences demand some other method-I know not what.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“The child which overbalances itself in learning to walk is experimenting on the law of gravity.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“Charles Babbage proposed to make an automaton chess-player which should register mechanically the number of games lost and gained in consequence of every sort of move. Thus, the longer the automaton went on playing game, the more experienced it would become by the accumulation of experimental results. Such a machine precisely represents the acquirement of experience by our nervous organization.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“The whole value of science consists in the power which it confers upon us of applying to one object the knowledge acquired from like objects; and it is only so far, therefore, as we can discover and register resemblances that we can turn our observations to account.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“I am convinced that it is impossible to expound the methods of induction in a sound manner, without resting them upon the theory of probability. Perfect knowledge alone can give certainty, and in nature perfect knowledge would be infinite knowledge, which is clearly beyond our capacities. We have, therefore, to content ourselves with partial knowledge-knowledge mingled with ignorance, producing doubt.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“Whoever wishes to acquire a deep acquaintance with Nature must observe that there are analogies which connect whole branches of science in a parallel manner, and enable us to infer of one class of phenomena what we know of another. It has thus happened on several occasions that the discovery of an unsuspected analogy between two branches of knowledge has been the starting point for a rapid course of discovery.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“Science arises from the discovery of Identity amid Diversity.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“A little experience is worth much argument; a few facts are better than any theory.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“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 -
“Some of the gold possessed by the Romans is doubtless mixed with what we now possess; and some small part of it will be handed down as long as the human race exists.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“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 -
“One pound invested for five years gives the same result as five pounds invested for one year, the product being five pound years.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“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 -
“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 -
“Logic is not only an exact science, but is the most simple and elementary of all sciences; it ought therefore undoubtedly to find some place in every course of education.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“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 -
“The laws of thought are natural laws with which we have no power to interfere, and which are of course not to be in any way confused with the artificial laws of a country, which are invented by men and can be altered by them. Every science is occupied in detecting and describing the natural laws which are inflexibly observed by the objects treated in the Science.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“As there are so many who talk prose without knowing it, or, again, who syllogize without having the least idea what a syllogism is, so economists have long been mathematicians without being aware of the fact.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“The conclusion to which I am ever more clearly coming is that the only hope of attaining a true system of economics is to fling aside,once and forever, the mazy and preposterous assumptions of the Ricardian school. Our English economists have been living in a fool's paradise. The truth is with the French school, and the sooner we recognize the fact, the better it will be for all the world, except perhaps the few writers who are far too committed to the old erroneous doctrines to allow for renunciation.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“Property is only another name for monopoly.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“There is no such thing as absolute cost of labour; it is all a matter of comparison. Every one gets the most which he can for his exertions; some can get little or nothing, because they have not sufficient strength, knowledge or ingenuity; others get much, because they have, comparatively speaking, a monopoly of certain powers.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“The calculus of utility aims at supplying the ordinary wants of man at the least cost of labour.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“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 -
“By a commodity we shall understand any object, substance, action or service, which can afford pleasure or ward off pain.”
-- William Stanley Jevons -
“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
