Jean-Baptiste Say Quotes - Page 2

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.

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.

I'il n'est pas en notre pouvoir de changer la nature des choses. Il faut les йtudier telles qu'elles sont.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

Still how unenlightened and ignorant are the very nations we term civilized!

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.

But, is it possible for princes and ministers to be enlightened, when private individuals are not so?

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.

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.

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.

When war becomes a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour.

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.

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.

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.

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

The wants of mankind are supplied and satisfied out of the gross values produced and created, and not out of the net values only.

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?

What is the motive which operates in every man's breast to counteract the impulse towards the gratification of his wants and appetites?

With respect to the present time, there are few persons who unite the qualifications of good observers with a situation favourable for accurate observation.

Valuation is vague and arbitrary, when there is no assurance that it will be generally acquiesced in by others.

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.