David Ricardo Quotes

43 quotes in 572 categories

• 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…
• 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,…
• Neither a state nor a bank ever have had unrestricted power of issuing paper money without abusing that power.
• 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…
• For price is everywhere regulated by the return obtained by this last portion of capital, for which no rent whatever is paid.
• Gold, on the contrary, though of little use compared with air or water, will exchange for a great quantity of other goods.
• There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down....
• A rise of wages from this cause will, indeed, be invariably accompanied by a rise in the price of commodities; but in such cases, it…
• After all the fertile land in the immediate neighbourhood of the first settlers were cultivated, if capital and population increased, more food would be required,…
• A rise in wages, from an alteration in the value of money, produces a general effect on price, and for that reason it produces no…
• The exchangeable value of all commodities rises as the difficulties of their production increase.
• In the same manner if any nation wasted part of its wealth, or lost part of its trade, it could not retain the same quantity…
• During the period of capital moving from one employment to another, the profits on that to which capital is flowing will be relatively high, but…
• Called an inquiry into the laws which determine the division of the produce...
• It is not by the absolute quantity of produce obtained by either class, that we can correctly judge of the rate of profit, rent, and…
• Profits might also increase, because improvements might take place in agriculture, or in the implements of husbandry, which would augment the produce with the same…
• No extension of foreign trade will immediately increase the amount of value in a country, although it will very powerfully contribute to increase the mass…
• The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.
• But it is clear that the price of labour has no necessary connection with the price of food, since it depends entirely on the supply…
• If a tax on malt would raise the price of beer, a tax on bread must raise the price of bread.

Browse David Ricardo Quotes by Category