Alfred Marshall Quotes (20 Quotes)

Again, most of the chief distinctions marked by economic terms are differences not of kind but of degree.

Economics has as its purpose firstly to acquire knowledge for its own sake, and secondly to throw light on practical issues. But though we are bound, before entering on any study, to consider carefully what are its uses, we should not plan out our work with direct reference to them.

The modern developments of economic science in relation to rent indicate progress. For we are learning that what is commonly called the rent of land is really a very complex thing made up of many elements, some of which differ more widely from one another than it, as a whole, differs from profits, or than some elements of it differ from wages.

Producer's Surplus is a convenient name for the genus of which the rent of land is the leading species.

Civilized countries generally adopt gold or silver or both as money.

Consumption may be regarded as negative production.

And very often the influence exerted on a person's character by the amount of his income is hardly less, if it is less, than that exerted by the way in which it is earned.

All labour is directed towards producing some effect.

Individual and national rights to wealth rest on the basis of civil and international law, or at least of custom that has the force of law.

In every age poets and social reformers have tried to stimulate the people of their own time to a nobler life by enchanting stories of the virtues of the heroes of old.

Slavery was regarded by Aristotle as an ordinance of nature, and so probably was it by the slaves themselves in olden time.

The price of every thing rises and falls from time to time and place to place; and with every such change the purchasing power of money changes so far as that thing goes.

All wealth consists of desirable things; that is, things which satisfy human wants directly or indirectly: but not all desirable things are reckoned as wealth.

Capital is that part of wealth which is devoted to obtaining further wealth.

But if inventions have increased man's power over nature very much, then the real value of money is better measured for some purposes in labour than in commodities.

In the absence of any short term in common use to represent all desirable things, or things that satisfy human wants, we may use the term Goods for that purpose.

The hope that poverty and ignorance may gradually be extinguished, derives indeed much support from the steady progress of the working classes during the nineteenth century.

It is common to distinguish necessaries, comforts, and luxuries; the first class including all things required to meet wants which must be satisfied, while the latter consist of things that meet wants of a less urgent character.

In common use almost every word has many shades of meaning, and therefore needs to be interpreted by the context.

Material goods consist of useful material things, and of all rights to hold, or use, or derive benefits from material things, or to receive them at a future time.