Jean-Baptiste Say Quotes

75 Sourced Quotes

Capital in the hands of a national government forms a part of the gross national capital.

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
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
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.

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
At Newfoundland, it is said, that dried cod performs the office of money,

Jean-Baptiste Say
A tax can never be favorable to the public welfare, except by the good use that is made of its proceeds.

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.

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
Capital can seldom be made productive, without undergoing several changes both of form and of place, the risk of which is always more or less alarming to persons unaccustomed to the operations of industry; whereas, on the contrary, landed property produces without any change of either quality or position.

Jean-Baptiste Say
A science only advances with certainty, when the plan of inquiry and the object of our researches have been clearly defined; otherwise a small number of truths are loosely laid hold of, without their connexion being perceived, and numerous errors, without being enabled to detect their fallacy.

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
Taxation being a burthen, must needs weigh lightest on each individual, when it bears upon all alike.

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.

Jean-Baptiste Say
The most effectual encouragement to population is, the activity of industry, and the consequent multiplication of the national products.

Jean-Baptiste Say
Still how unenlightened and ignorant are the very nations we term civilized!

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
The difficulty lies, not in finding a producer, but in finding a consumer.

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.

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.

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.

Jean-Baptiste Say
What can we expect from nations still less advanced in civilization than the Greeks?

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
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
Political economy has only become a science since it has been confined to the results of inductive investigation.

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
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.

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.

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.

Jean-Baptiste Say
The quantity of money, which is readily parted with to obtain a thing is called its price.

Jean-Baptiste Say