William Stanley Jevons: Trending quotes (page 3)

“An isolated man like Alexander Selkirk might feel the benefit of a stock of provisions, tools and other means of facilitating industry, although cut off from traffic, with other men.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter VII, Theory of Capital, p. 185.

Men , Feeling

“Ina regular and constant employment the greatest result will always be gained by such a rate as allows a workman each day, or each week at the most, to recover all fatigue and recommence with an undiminished store of energy.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter V, Theory of Labour, p. 176.

“I feel quite unable to adopt the opinion that the moment goods pass into the possession of the consumer they cease altogether to have the attributes of capital.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter VII, Theory of Capital, p. 209.

Feeling

“Coal in truth stands not beside, but entirely above, all other commodities. It is the material source of the energy of the country—the universal aid—the factor in everything we do. With coal almost any feat is possible or easy; without it we are thrown back into the laborious poverty of earlier times.”

William Stanley Jevons book The Coal Question

The Coal Question (1865)

Truth , Universe , Time , Country

“What capital I give for the spade merely replaces what the manufacturer had already invested in the expectation that the spade would be needed.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter VII, Theory of Capital, p. 188.

“All acts of reasoning seem to me to be different cases of one uniform process which may perhaps be best described as the substitution of similars… The chief difficulty consists in showing that all the forms of the old logic, as well as the fundamental rules of mathematical reasoning, may be explained upon the same principle; and it is to this difficult task I have devoted the most attention.”

William Stanley Jevons

Preface
The Substitution of Similars, The True Principles of Reasoning (1869)

Mathematics

“Some of the gold possessed by the Romans is doubtless mixed with what we now possess; and some small part of it will be handed down as long as the human race exists.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter VII, Theory of Capital, p. 198.

Parting

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

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter III, Theory of Utility, p. 61.

Pain , Pleasure , Understanding

“that in the same open market, at any one moment, there cannot be two prices for the same kind of article”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter IV, Theory of Exchange, p. 97.

“Nature is to us like an inﬁnite ballot-box, the contents of which are being continually drawn, ball after ball, and exhibited to us. Science is but the careful observation of the succession in which balls of various character present themselves; we register the combinations, notice those which seem to be excluded from occurrence, and from the proportional frequency of those which usually appear we infer the probable character of future drawings.”

William Stanley Jevons

Source: The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1874) Vol. 1, p. 169

Nature , Appearance , Science , Success

“Repeated reflection and inquiry have led me to the somewhat novel opinion, that value depends entirely upon utility.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter I, Introduction, p. 37.

Dependency

“we often observe that there is abundance of capital to be had at low rates of interest, while there are also large numbers of artisans starving for want of employment.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter VIII, Concluding Remarks, p. 215.

“Logic should no longer be considered an elegant and learned accomplishment; it should take its place as an indispensable study for every well-informed person.”

William Stanley Jevons

Preface.
Elementary Lessons on Logic (1870)

Study , Learning , Personality

“In this work I have attempted to treat economy as a calculus of pleasure and pain, and have sketched out, almost irrespective of previous opinions, the form which the science, as it seems to me, must ultimately take.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Preface To The First Edition, p. 4.
The Theory of Political Economy (1871)

Pain , Pleasure , Science

“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.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter IV, Theory of Exchange, p. 110.

Law , Learning , Science

“Neither in deductive nor inductive reasoning can we add a tittle to our implicit knowledge, which is like that contained in an unread book or a sealed letter. …Reasoning explicates or brings to conscious possession what was before unconscious. It does not create, nor does it destroy, but it transmutes and throws the same matter into a new form.”

William Stanley Jevons

Source: The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1874) Vol. 1, p. 136

Books , Knowledge

“[F]acts are valueless unless connected and explained by a correct theory; […] analogies are very dangerous grounds of inference, unless carefully founded on similar conditions; […] experience misleads if it be misinterpreted.”

William Stanley Jevons

"The Railways and the State." https://archive.org/stream/essaysaddresses00oweniala#page/467/mode/2up In Essays and Addresses, Macmillan & Co., 1874, page 467.

“One of the first and most difficult steps in a science is to conceive clearly the nature of the magnitudes about which we are arguing.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter III, Theory of Utility, p. 78.

Nature , Science

“Have we not hereditary possessions in our just laws, our free and nobly developed constitution, our rich literature and philosophy, incomparably above material wealth, and which we are beyond all things bound to maintain, improve, and hand down in safety? And do we accomplish this duty in encouraging a growth of industry which must prove unstable, and perhaps involve all things in its fall?”

William Stanley Jevons book The Coal Question

The Coal Question (1865)

Law , Literature , Wealth

“I protest against deference to any man, whether John Stuart Mill, or Adam Smith, or Aristotle, being allowed to check inquiry. Our science has become far too much a stagnant one, in which opinions rather than experience and reason are appealed to.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter VIII : Concluding Remarks, The Noxious Influence of Authority, p. 221.

Science