William Stanley Jevons Quotes on Politics
William Stanley Jevons was an English economist, logician, and philosopher of science and one of the chief figures of the marginal revolution in economics. This page collects quotes attributed to William Stanley Jevons on the topic of politics, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“Value depends entirely upon utility.”
Chapter I, Introduction, p. 37. -
Attributed to William Stanley Jevons:
“The calculus of pleasure and pain is the moving force of every economy.”
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“You will perceive that economy , scientifically speaking, is a very contracted science; it is in fact a sort of vague mathematics which calculates the causes and effects of man's industry, and shows how it may be best applied. There are a multitude of allied branches of knowledge connected with mans condition; the relation of these to political economy is analogous to the connexion of mechanics , astronomy , optics , sound , heat , and every other branch more or less of physical science, with pure mathematics .”
Letter to Henrietta Jevons (28 February 1858), published in Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons (1886), edited by Harriet A. Jevons, his wife, p. 101. -
“Journal (November 1866) following criticism from "the Radicals" of his Oct. 12 lecture "On the Diffusion of a Knowledge of Political Economy." Letters and Journal of W. Stanley Jevons (1886) pp. 230-231.”
I cannot consent with the Radical party to obliterate a glorious past, nor can I consent with the Conservatives to prolong abuses into the present. I wish with all my heart to aid in securing all that is good for the masses, yet to give them all they wish and are striving for is to endanger much that is good beyond their comprehension. I cannot pretend to underestimate the good that the English mo