Quotes from work
The Theory of Political Economy

“In any case I hold that there must arise a science of the development of economic forms and relations.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Preface To The Second Edition, p. 9.
The Theory of Political Economy (1871)

“Economists can never be free of from difficulties unless they will distinguish between a theory and the application of a theory.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter IV, Theory of Exchange, p. 108.

“The calculus of utility aims at supplying the ordinary wants of man at the least cost of labour.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter I, Introduction, p. 53.

“A correct theory is the first step towards improvement”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter I, Introduction, p. 44.
Context: A correct theory is the first step towards improvement, by showing what we need and what we might accomplish.

“Q, which would include quantity of space or time or force, in fact almost any kind of quantity.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Preface To The Second Edition, p. 6.
The Theory of Political Economy (1871)
Context: A correspondent, Captain Charles Christie R. E., to whom I have shown these sections after they were printed, objects reasonably enough that commodity should not have been represented by M, or Mass, but by some symbol, for instance Q, which would include quantity of space or time or force, in fact almost any kind of quantity.

“but, in reality, there is no such thing as an exact science.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter I, Introduction, p. 40.

“I do not write for mathematicians, nor as a mathematician, but as an economist”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Preface To The Second Edition, p. 7.
The Theory of Political Economy (1871)
Context: In short, I do not write for mathematicians, nor as a mathematician, but as an economist wishing to convince other economists that their science can only be satisfactorily treated on an explicitly mathematical basis.

“I consider that interest is determined by the increment of produce which it enables a labourer to obtain, and is altogether independent of the total return which he receives for this labour.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter VII, Theory of Capital, p. 206.

“My principal work now lies in tracing out the exact nature and conditions of utility. It seems strange indeed that economists have not bestowed more minute attention on a subject which doubtless furnishes the true key to the problems of economics.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter III, Theory of Utility, p. 65.

“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.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

Source: The Theory of Political Economy (1871), Chapter I, Introduction, p. 51.

“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.”

William Stanley Jevons The Theory of Political Economy

William Stanley Jevons, The Theory of Political Economy (1871). Preface To The Second Edition, p. 14.
The Theory of Political Economy (1871)