Jean-Baptiste Say Quotes

French economist and businessman (1767–1832)

Jean-Baptiste Say (5 January 1767 – 15 November 1832) was a French economist and businessman. He was said to have held classically liberal views. He is most remembered today for Say's Law.

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Alternative Names: Jean Baptiste Say

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

With no fixed opinions in relation to the causes of public prosperity, the nation, like a ship without chart or compass, was driven about by the caprice of the winds and the folly of the pilot, alike ignorant of the place of her departure or destination.

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

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.

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

It is, perhaps, a well founded objection to Mr. Ricardo, that he sometimes reasons upon abstract principles to which he gives too great a generalization.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.