Jean-Baptiste Say quotes - page 3

Jean-Baptiste Say was a French economist and businessman, best known for formulating Say’s Law. His work emphasized the importance of entrepreneurship and production in economic growth. He greatly influenced classical economics and modern economic thought. Here are 73 of his quotes:

Capital must work, as it were, in concert with industry; and this concurrence is what I call the productive agency of capital. (Jean-Baptiste Say)
Taxation being a burthen, must needs weigh lightest on each individual, when it bears upon all alike. View quote
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? View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
Dominion by land or sea will appear equally destitute of attraction, when it comes to be generally understood, that all its advantages rest with the rulers, and that the subjects at large derive no benefit whatever. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
When war becomes a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
The celebrated Adam Smith was the first to point out the immense increase of production, and the superior perfection of products referable to this division of labour. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
Still how unenlightened and ignorant are the very nations we term civilized! View quote
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. View quote
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. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
Freedoms and apprenticeships are likewise expedients of police, not of that wholesome branch of police, whose object is the maintenance of the public and private security, and which is neither costly nor vexatious; but of that sort of police which bad governments employ to preserve or extend their personal authority at any expense. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
capital cannot be more beneficially employed, then in strengthening and aiding the productive powers of nature. (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. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
Labour, upon whichever of those operations it be bestowed, is productive, because it concurs in the creation of a product. Thus the labour of the philosopher, whether experimental or literary, is productive; the labour of the adventurer or master-manufacturer is productive, although he perform no actual manual work; the labour of every operative workman is productive, from the common day-labourer in agriculture, to the pilot that governs the motion of a ship. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
How many other opinions, as universally prevailing and as much respected, will in like manner pass away? View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
The encouragement of mere consumption is no benefit to commerce; for the difficulty lies in supplying the means, not in stimulating the desire of consumption; and we have seen that production alone, furnishes those means. Thus, it is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
The most effectual encouragement to population is, the activity of industry, and the consequent multiplication of the national products. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
It is, perhaps, a well founded objection to Mr. Ricardo, that he sometimes reasons upon abstract principles to which he gives too great a generalization. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
With no fixed opinions in relation to the causes of public prosperity, the nation, like a ship without chart or compass, was driven about by the caprice of the winds and the folly of the pilot, alike ignorant of the place of her departure or destination. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
There is no security of property, where a despotic authority can possess itself of the property of the subject against his consent. Neither is there such security, where the consent is merely nominal and delusive. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
The command of a large sum is a dangerous temptation to a national administration. Though accumulated at their expense, the people rarely, if ever profit by it: yet in point of fact, all value, and consequently, all wealth, originates with the people. View quote
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)
Which leads us to a conclusion that may at first appear paradoxical, namely, that it is production which opens a demand for products. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say
A system of swindling can never be long lived, and must infallibly in the end produce much more loss than profit. View quote
Jean-Baptiste Say

Jean-Baptiste Say

Jean-Baptiste Say - Image
Occupation: French Economist
Born: January 5, 1767
Died: November 14, 1832
Quotes count: 73
Wikipedia: Jean-Baptiste Say

Related authors

Adam Smith - thumbnail
Adam Smith  232 
Scottish Economist
David Ricardo - thumbnail
David Ricardo  65 
British Economist
Thomas Malthus - thumbnail
Thomas Malthus  84 
British Economist
John Stuart Mill - thumbnail
John Stuart Mill  255 
British Philosopher
Frédéric Bastiat  41 
French Economist
François Quesnay - thumbnail
François Quesnay  4 
French Economist
John Maynard Keynes  167 
English Economist
Alfred Marshall - thumbnail
Alfred Marshall  30 
English Economist
Carl Menger - thumbnail
Carl Menger  8 
Austrian Economist
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot - thumbnail
Anne Robert Jacques Turgot  16 
French Economist