Jean-Baptiste Say quotes - page 2

It is doubtless very desirable, that private persons should have a correct knowledge of their personal interests; but it must be infinitely more so, that governments should possess that knowledge. (Jean-Baptiste Say)
With respect to the present time, there are few persons who unite the qualifications of good observers with a situation favourable for accurate observation. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
Valuation is vague and arbitrary, when there is no assurance that it will be generally acquiesced in by others. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
Political economy has only become a science since it has been confined to the results of inductive investigation. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
The day will come, sooner or later, when people will wonder at the necessity of taking all this trouble to expose the folly of a system, so childish and absurd, and yet so often enforced at the point of a bayonet. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
The government has, in all countries, a vast influence, in determining the character of the national consumption; not only because it absolutely directs the consumption of the state itself, but because a great proportion of the consumption of individuals is gained by its will and example. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
To have never done anything but make the eighteenth part of a pin, is a sorry account for a human being to give of his existence. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
The ancients, by their system of colonization, made themselves friends all over the known world; the moderns have sought to make subjects, and therefore have made enemies. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
The occupation of the stock-jobber yields no new or useful product; consequently having no product of his own to give in exchange, he has no revenue to subsist upon, but what he contrives to make out of the unskilfulness or ill-fortune of gamesters like himself. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
If the community wish to have the benefit of more knowledge and intelligence in the labouring classes, it must dispense it at the public charge. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
Wherefore it is impossible to succeed in comparing wealth of different eras or different nations. This, in political economy, like squaring the circle in mathematics, is impracticable, for want of a common mean or measure to go by. (Jean-Baptiste Say)
The quantity of money, which is readily parted with to obtain a thing is called its price. View quote
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. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
The wealthy are generally impressed with an idea, that they shall never stand in need of public charitable relief; but a little less confidence would become them better. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
Capital in the hands of a national government forms a part of the gross national capital. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
The theory of interest was wrapped in utter obscurity, until Hume and Smith dispelled the vapor. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
No human being has the faculty of originally creating matter, which is more than nature itself can do. But any one may avail himself of the agents offered him by nature, to invest matter with utility. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
Nothing can be more idle than the opposition of theory to practice! View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
What would people think of a tradesman, that was to give a ball in his shop, hire performers, and hand refreshments about, with a view to benefit his business? (Jean-Baptiste Say)
The United States will have the honour of proving experimentally, that true policy goes hand in hand with moderation and humanity. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
An uniformity of weights and measures, arranged upon mathematical principles, would be a benefit to the whole commercial world, if it were wise enough to adopt such an expedient. View quote
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. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
Law has been unjustly charged with the whole blame of the calamities resulting from the scheme that bears his name. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say