Jean-Baptiste Say Quotes

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“It is the aim of good government to stimulate production, of bad government to encourage consumption.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

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

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

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

— Jean-Baptiste Say

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

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“Supply creates its own demand.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“Law has been unjustly charged with the whole blame of the calamities resulting from the scheme that bears his name.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

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

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“Capital cannot be more beneficially employed, then in strengthening and aiding the productive powers of nature.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“The love of domination never attains more than a factitious elevation, that is sure to make enemies of all its neighbours.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

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

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“The occupation of the stock-jobber yields no new or useful product; consequently having no product of his own to give in exchange, he has no revenue to subsist upon, but what he contrives to make out of the unskilfulness or ill-fortune of gamesters like himself.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

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.

— Jean-Baptiste Say

A tax can never be favorable to the public welfare, except by the good use that is made of its proceeds.

— Jean-Baptiste Say

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.

— Jean-Baptiste Say

What can we expect from nations still less advanced in civilization than the Greeks?

— Jean-Baptiste Say

An uniformity of weights and measures, arranged upon mathematical principles, would be a benefit to the whole commercial world, if it were wise enough to adopt such an expedient.

— Jean-Baptiste Say

The luxury of ostentation affords a much less substantial and solid gratification, than the luxury of comfort, if I may be allowed the expression.

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“A shop-keeper in good business is quite as well off as a pedlar that travels the country with his wares on his back. Commercial jealousy is, after all, nothing but prejudice: it is a wild fruit, that will drop of itself when it has arrived at maturity.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

Freedoms and apprenticeships are likewise expedients of police,not of that wholesome branch of police, whose object is the maintenance of the public and private security, and which is neither costly nor vexatious; but of that sort of police which bad governments employ to preserve or extend their personal authority at any expense.

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“Some writers maintain arithmetic to be only the only sure guide in political economy; for my part, I see so many detestable systems built upon arithmetical statements, that I am rather inclined to regard that science as the instrument of national calamity.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

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

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“One product is always ultimately bought with another, even when paid for in the first instance with money.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“The celebrated Adam Smith was the first to point out the immense increase of production, and the superior perfection of products referable to this division of labour.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

Opulent, civilized, and industrious nations, are greater consumers than poor ones, because they are infinitely greater producers.

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“It is a melancholy but an undoubted fact, that, even in the most thriving countries, part of the population annually dies of mere want. Not that all who perish from want absolutely die of hunger; though this calamity is of more frequent occurrence than is generally supposed.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“The theory of interest was wrapped in utter obscurity, until Hume and Smith dispelled the vapor.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“Nothing can be more idle than the opposition of theory to practice!”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“Political economy has only become a science since it has been confined to the results of inductive investigation.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“Alas, how many have been persecuted for the wrong of having been right?”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“A much larger value is consumed in lettuces than in pineapples,throughout Europe at large; and the superb shawls of Cachemere are, in France, a very poor object in trade, in comparison with the plain cotton goods of Rouen.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

If one individual, or one class, can call in the aid of authority to ward off the effects of competition, it acquires a privilege and at the cost of the whole community; it can make sure of profits not altogether due to the productive services rendered, but composed in part of an actual tax upon consumers for its private profit' which tax it commonly shares with the authority that thus unjustly lent its support.

— Jean-Baptiste Say

The government has, in all countries, a vast influence, in determining the character of the national consumption; not only because it absolutely directs the consumption of the state itself, but because a great proportion of the consumption of individuals is gained by its will and example.

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“The United States will have the honour of proving experimentally, that true policy goes hand in hand with moderation and humanity.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“What would people think of a tradesman, that was to give a ball in his shop, hire performers, and hand refreshments about, with a view to benefit his business?”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“The sea and wind can at the same time convey my neighbour's vessel and my own.”

— Jean-Baptiste Say

“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?”

— Jean-Baptiste Say