46 Quotes by William Stanley Jevons

The theory of Economics must begin with a correct theory of consumption.

A little experience is worth much argument; a few facts are better than any theory.

As a general rule, it is foolish to do just what other people are doing, because there are almost sure to be too many people doing the same thing.

The theory which follows is entirely based on a calculus of pleasure and pain; and the object of economics is to maximize happiness by purchasing pleasure, as it were, at the lowest cost of pain.

A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish.

By a commodity we shall understand any object, substance, action or service, which can afford pleasure or ward off pain.

The difficulties of economics are mainly the difficulties of conceiving clearly and fully the conditions of utility.

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.

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.