Jean-Baptiste Say
It is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption.Collection: Government
The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.Collection: Yield
Supply creates its own demand.Collection: Demand
What can we expect from nations still less advanced in civilization than the Greeks?Collection: Civilization
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.Collection: Nature
One product is always ultimately bought with another, even when paid for in the first instance with money.Collection: Firsts
Nothing can be more idle than the opposition of theory to practice!Collection: Practice
The best scheme of finance is, to spend as little as possible; and the best tax is always the lightest.Collection: Littles
The difficulty lies, not in finding a producer, but in finding a consumer.Collection: Lying
I have made no distinction between the circulation of goods and of money, because there really is none.Collection: Made
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.Collection: Opposites
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.Collection: Errors
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.Collection: Causes
Opulent, civilized, and industrious nations, are greater consumers than poor ones, because they are infinitely greater producers.Collection: Poor
Every individual, from the common mechanic, that works in wood or clay, to the prime minister that regulates with the dash of his pen the agriculture, the breeding of cattle, the mining, or the commerce of a nation, will perform his business the better, the better he understands the nature of things,and the more his understanding is enlightened.Collection: Agriculture
Alas, how many have been persecuted for the wrong of having been right?Collection: Wisdom
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.Collection: Loss
When a tree, a natural product, is felled, is society put into possession of no greater produce than that of the mere labour of the woodman?Collection: Tree
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.Collection: Risk
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.Collection: Numbers
All those who, since Adam Smith, have turned their attention to Political Economy, agree that in reality we do not buy articles of consumption with money, the circulating medium with which we pay for them. We must in the first instance have bought this money itself by the sale of our produce.Collection: Wisdom
A tax can never be favorable to the public welfare, except by the good use that is made of its proceeds.Collection: Use
The love of domination never attains more than a factitious elevation, that is sure to make enemies of all its neighbours.Collection: Enemy
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.Collection: Running
A treasure does not always contribute to the political security of its possessors. It rather invites attack, and very seldom is faithfully applied to the purpose for which it was destined.Collection: Political
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.Collection: Safety
A nation or an individual, will do wisely to direct consumption chiefly to those articles, that are longest time in wearing out, and the most frequently in use.Collection: Use
I'il n'est pas en notre pouvoir de changer la nature des choses. Il faut les йtudier telles qu'elles sont.Collection: Economics
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.Collection: People
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.Collection: Country
Capital in the hands of a national government forms a part of the gross national capital.Collection: Government
To a proprietor of a mine, the silver money is a produce with which he buys what he has occasion for. To all those through whose hands this silver afterwards passes, it is only the price of the produce which they themselves have raised by means of their property in land, their capitals, or their industry. In selling them they in the first place exchange them for money, and afterwards they exchange the money for articles of consumption.Collection: Mean
Taxation being a burthen, must needs weigh lightest on each individual, when it bears upon all alike.Collection: Needs
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.Collection: Party
But, is it possible for princes and ministers to be enlightened, when private individuals are not so?Collection: Enlightened
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.Collection: People
Still how unenlightened and ignorant are the very nations we term civilized!Collection: Ignorant
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.Collection: Sorry
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.Collection: Enemy
When war becomes a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour.Collection: War
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.Collection: Sea
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.Collection: Class
The wants of mankind are supplied and satisfied out of the gross values produced and created, and not out of the net values only.Collection: Want
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?Collection: Character
With respect to the present time, there are few persons who unite the qualifications of good observers with a situation favourable for accurate observation.Collection: Observation
Valuation is vague and arbitrary, when there is no assurance that it will be generally acquiesced in by others.Collection: Arbitrary
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.Collection: Government
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.Collection: Creating
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.Collection: Mean
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.Collection: Ideas