William Petty Quotes (22 Quotes)

Money is the best rule of commerce.

Without the knowledge of the true number of the people, as a principle, the whole scope and use of keeping bills of birth and burials is impaired wherefore by laborious conjectures and calculations to deduce the number of people from the births and burials, may be ingenious, but very preposterous.

I hope no man takes what I said about the living and dieing of men for mathematical demonstration.

If great cities are naturally apt to remove their seats, I ask, which way I say, in the case of London it must be westward... If it follow from hence that the palaces of the greatest men will remove westward, it will also naturally follow that the dwelling of others who depend upon them will creep after them.

A thousand acres that can feed a thousand souls is better than ten thousand acres of no more effect.

Wherefore the race being not to the swift, etc. but time and chance happening to all men, I leave the Judgement of the whole to the Candid, of whose correction I shall never be impatient.

It were good to know how much hay an acre of every sort will bear how many cattle the same weight of each sort of hay will feed and fatten what quantity of grain and other commodities the same acre will bear in one, three or seven years unto what use each soil is proper all which particulars I call intrinsic value, for there is also another value merely accidental or extrinsic.

Another cause which aggravates taxes is the force of paying them in money at a certain tinge, and not in commodities at the most convenient seasons.

Wherefore when a man giveth out his money upon condition that be may not demand it back until a certain time to come, he certainly may take a compensation for this inconvenience which he admits against himself.

I make this question, whether, since they do all live by begging... it were not better for the state to keep them.

An house is of a double nature, viz., one, wherein it is a way and means of expence, the other as it is an instrument and tool of gain.

As for religion, I die in the profession of that faith, and in the practice of such worship as I find established by the law of my country.

Now, forasmuch as princes are not only powerful but rich, according to a number of people (hands being the Father as lands are the Mother or Womb of Wealth), it is no wonder why states by encouraging marriage, advance their own interests.

That some are poorer than others, ever was and ever will be: And that many are naturally querulous and envious, is an Evil as old as the World.

We incline, therefore, to think the parishes should be equal or near, because in the reformed religion the principal use of a church is to preach in.

Every seaman is not only a navigator, but a merchant and also a soldier.

In the next place, it will be asked, who shall pay these men I answer, everybody.

It were good to know the geometrical content, figure and situation of all the lands of a kingdom, especially according to its most natural bounds.

Here we are to remember that in consequence of our opinion that labor is the Father and active principle of wealth, as lands are the Mother, that the state by killing, mutilating, or imprisoning their members do withal punish themselves.

Causes of Civil War are also, that the Wealth of the Nation is in too few mens hands, and that no certain means are provided to keep all men from a necessity either to beg, or steal, or be Souldiers.

No man pays double or twice for the same thing, forasmuch as nothing can be spent but once.

The trade of banks is the buying and selling of interest and exchange.