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Neither in deductive nor inductive reasoning can we add a tittle to our implicit knowledge, which is like that contained in an unread book or a sealed letter. ...Reasoning explicates or brings to conscious possession what was before unconscious. It does not create, nor does it destroy, but it transmutes and throws the same matter into a new form.

— William Stanley Jevons The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1874)

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More quotes by William Stanley Jevons

The calculus of utility aims at supplying the ordinary wants of man at the least cost of labour.

The Theory of Political Economy (1871)

Repeated reflection and inquiry have led me to the somewhat novel opinion, that value depends entirely upon utility.

The Theory of Political Economy (1871)

I shall endeavor to show that induction is really the inverse process of deduction.

The Principles of Science: A Treatise on Logic and Scientific Method (1874)

Our English economists have been living in a fool's paradise.

The Theory of Political Economy (1871)

Value is the most invisible and impalpable of ghosts, and comes and goes unthought of while the visible and dense matter remains as it was.

Investigations in Currency and Finance (1884)

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The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error.

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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Stanley Jevons (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.