JEAN-BAPTISTE SAY

After all, money is but the agent of the transfer of values

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

The best scheme of finance is, to spend as little as possible; and the best tax is always the lightest.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 unskillfulness or ill-fortune of gamesters like himself.

How many other opinions, as universally prevailing and as much respected, will … pass away?

It is a melancholy but an undoubted fact, that, even in the most thriving countries, part of the population annually dies of mere want.

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 benefit of the national privation and self denial?

the cause must be ascertained, before the remedy is devised.

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.

Nothing is more dangerous in practice, than an obstinate, unbending adherence to a system.

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

All travelers 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Supply creates its own demand