Jean-Baptiste Say Quotes

How many other opinions, as universally prevailing and as much respected, will in like manner pass away?

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

The haggardness of poverty is everywhere seen contrasted with the sleekness of wealth, the exhorted labour of some compensating for the idleness of others, wretched hovels by the side of stately colonnades, the rags of indigence blended with the ensigns of opulence; in a word, the most useless profusion in the midst of the most urgent wants.

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

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 have made no distinction between the circulation of goods and of money, because there really is none.

The difficulty lies, not in finding a producer, but in finding a consumer.

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

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

Nothing is more dangerous in practice, than an obstinate, unbending adherence to a system, particularly in its application to the wants and errors of mankind.