“The diminution of money in one country, and its increase in another, do not operate on the price of one commodity only, but on the prices of all.”
“Gold and silver are no doubt subject to fluctuations, from the discovery of new and more abundant mines; but such discoveries are rare, and their effects, though powerful, are limited to periods of comparatively short duration.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo ...
“Whenever, then, the usual and ordinary rate of the profits of agricultural stock, and all the outgoings belonging to the cultivation of land, are together equal to the value of the whole produce, there can be no rent.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo: With a Notice of the Life and Writings of the Author
“The interest of the landlord is always opposed to the interests of every other class in the community.”
“Rent is the portion of the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the user of the original and indestructible powers of the soil”
“Adam Smith, and other able writers to whom I have alluded, not having viewed correctly the principles of rent, have, it appears to me, overlooked many important truths, which can only be discovered after the subject of rent is thoroughly understood.”
Source: On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
“Money is neither a material to work upon nor a tool to work with.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“The produce of the earth - all that is derived from its surface by the united application of labour, machinery, and capital, is divided among three classes of the community, namely, the proprietor of the land, the owner of the stock or capital necessary for its cultivation, and the labourers by whose industry it is cultivated.”
Source: On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
“I have endeavoured to show that the ability to pay taxes depends, not on the gross money value of the mass of commodities, nor on the net money value of the revenue of capitalists and landlords, but on the money value of each man's revenue compared to the money value of the commodities which he usually consumes.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“Possessing utility, commodities derive their exchangeable value from two sources: from their scarcity, and from the quantity of labour required to obtain them.”
Source: On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
“It has therefore been justly observed that however honestly the coin of a country may conform to its standard, money made of gold and silver is still liable to fluctuations in value, not only to accidental, and temporary, but to permanent and natural variations, in the same manner as other commodities.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo ...
“LABOUR, like all other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price. The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, on with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.”
“There can be no greater error then in supposing that capital is increased by non-consumption.”
“The demand for money is regulated entirely by its value, and its value by its quantity.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“To alter the money value of commodities, by altering the value of money, and yet to raise the same money amount by taxes, is then undoubtedly to increase the burthens of society.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo: With a Notice of the Life and Writings of the Author
“The factors left out of the Ricardian equation are falling wages and idle capacity.”
“Like all other contracts, wages should be left to the fair and free competition of themarket, and should never be controlled by the interference of the legislature.”
“The wheat bought by a farmer to sow is comparatively a fixed capital to the wheat purchased by a baker to make into loaves.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“Neither machines, nor the commodities made by them, rise in real value, but all commodities made by machines fall, and fall in proportion to their durability.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“The variation in the value of money, however great, makes no difference in the rate of profits.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“Every transaction in commerce is an independent transaction.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo ...
“Whenever the current of money is forcibly stopped, and when money is prevented from settling at its just level, there are no limits to the possible variations of the exchange.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“If English money was of the same value then as before, Hamburgh money must have risen in value. But where is the proof of this?”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo, Esq., M.P.: With a Notice of the Life and Writings of the Author
“Whether a bank lent one million, ten million, or a hundred millions, they would not permanently alter the market rate of interest; they would alter only the value of the money they issued.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“The opinions that the price of commodities depends solely on the proportion of supply and demand, or demand to supply, has become almost an axiom in political economy, and has been the source of much error in that science.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“I have already expressed my opinion on this subject in treating of rent, and have now only further to add, that rent is a creation of value, as I understand that word, but not a creation of wealth.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“The price of corn will naturally rise with the difficulty of producing the last portions of it.”
Source: On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
“Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold... has its natural and its market price.”
Source: On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
“The last point for consideration is the supposed disposition of the people to interfere with the rights of property. So essential does it appear to me, to the cause of good government, that the rights of property should be held sacred, that I would agree to deprive those of the elective franchise against whom it could justly be alleged that they considered it their interest to invade them.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo ...
“...I wish that I may never think the smiles of the great and powerful a sufficient inducement to turn aside from the straight path of honesty and the convictions of my own mind.”
Source: Works and Correspondence: Letters, 1816-1818
“As the revenue of the farmer is realized in raw produce, or in the value of raw produce, he is interested, as well as the landlord, in its high exchangeable value, but a low price of produce may be compensated to him by a great additional quantity.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“But a rise in the wages of labour would not equally affect commodities produced with machinery quickly consumed, and commodities produced with machinery slowly consumed.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“If a commodity were in no way useful, - in other words, if it could in no way contribute to our gratification, - it would be destitute of exchangeable value, however scarce it might be, or whatever quantity of labour might be necessary to procure it.”
Source: On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
“If the demand for home commodities should be diminished, because of the fall of rent on the part of the landlords, it will be increased in a far greater degree by the increased opulence of the commercial classes.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo. With a notice of the life and writings of the author: by J. R. McCulloch
“Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo ...
“Experience, however, shows that neither a state nor a bank ever have [sic] had the unrestricted power of issuing paper money without abusing that power; in all states, therefore, the issue of paper money ought to be under some check and control; and none seems so proper for that purpose as that of subjecting the issuers of paper money to the obligation of paying their notes either in gold coin or bullion.”
“Taxation under every form presents but a choice of evils.”
Source: On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
“It appears to me that one great cause of our difference in opinion on subjects which we often discuss is that you have always in mind the immediate and temporary effects of particular changes, whereas I put these effects quite aside, and fix my whole attention on the long-term effects that will result from them.”
“Profits are not made by differential cleverness, but by differential stupidity.”
“Gold and silver, like other commodities, have an intrinsic value, which is not arbitrary, but is dependent on their scarcity, the quantity of labour bestowed in procuring them, and the value of the capital employed in the mines which produce them.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo ...
“Again two manufacturers may employ the same amount of fixed, and the same amount of circulating capital; but the durability of their fixed capitals may be very unequal.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo, Esq., M.P.: With a Notice of the Life and Writings of the Author
“There can be no rise in the value of labour
without a fall of profits.”
Source: On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
“If then the prosperity of the commercial classes, will most certainly lead to accumulation of capital, and the encouragement of productive industry; these can by no means be so surely obtained as by a fall in the price of corn.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo, Esq., M.P.: With a Notice of the Life and Writings of the Author
“Neither a state nor a bank ever have had unrestricted power of issuing paper money without abusing that power.”
Source: The Works of David Ricardo, Esq., M.P.: With a Notice of the Life and Writings of the Author
“It is here we come to the heart of the matter. The economic principle of comparative advantage', 'a country may, in return for manufactured commodities, import corn even if it can be grown with less labour than in the country from which it is imported”
“By far the greatest part of those goods which are the objects of desire, are procured by labour and they may be multiplied, not in one country alone, but in many, almost without any assignable limit, if we are disposed to bestow the labour necessary to obtain them.”
Source: On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
“For price is everywhere regulated by the return obtained by this last portion of capital, for which no rent whatever is paid.”
Source: On the Principles of political economy and taxation
“Gold, on the contrary, though of little use compared with air or water, will exchange for a great quantity of other goods.”
Source: On the Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation
“There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down.”
Source: Works: With a Notice of the Life and Writings of the Author
