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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.

David Ricardo

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.
DAVID RICARDO

Discover Doubt Fluctuation Gold Limitation Powerful Rare Silver Subject
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 wages, but by the quantity of labour required to obtain that produce.
DAVID RICARDO

Absolute Production Quantity Rate Requirement
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.
DAVID RICARDO

Class Commercial Commodity Degree Demand Greatness Home
Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold, has its natural and its market price.
DAVID RICARDO

Market Natural Price Purchase Sold Value
Gold, on the contrary, though of little use compared with air or water, will exchange for a great quantity of other goods.
DAVID RICARDO

Compare exchange Gold Goodness Greatness
If a tax on malt would raise the price of beer, a tax on bread must raise the price of bread.
DAVID RICARDO

Beer Food Price Raise Tax
The price of corn will naturally rise with the difficulty of producing the last portions of it.
DAVID RICARDO

Natural Portion Price
Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.
DAVID RICARDO

Contribute Country Happiness Prosperity
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.
DAVID RICARDO

Capital Class Commercial Encouragement Prosperity
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.
DAVID RICARDO

Capital Equality Fix Man
The interest of the landlord is always opposed to the interests of every other class in the community.
DAVID RICARDO

Class Community Interest
There can be no greater error then in supposing that capital is increased by non-consumption.
DAVID RICARDO

Consumption Errors Greatness Increase
Called an inquiry into the laws which determine the division of the produce.
DAVID RICARDO

Determination Division Law Production
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 cost of production.
DAVID RICARDO

Agriculture Husband Improvement Profit
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.
DAVID RICARDO

Advantage Economics Growth Heart Import Manufacture Principle
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.
DAVID RICARDO

Commodity Machine Production Rise Wage
There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down.
DAVID RICARDO

Profit Wage Way Yourself
Every transaction in commerce is an independent transaction.
DAVID RICARDO

Commerce Independent Transaction
Profits are not made by differential cleverness, but by differential stupidity.
DAVID RICARDO

Clever Different Profit Stupidity
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 of labourers compared with the demand.
DAVID RICARDO

Clear Compare Connection Demand Labor Necessary Price
Taxation under every form presents but a choice of evils.
DAVID RICARDO

Choice Evil Option
Possessing utility, commodities derive their exchangeable value from two sources: from their scarcity, and from the quantity of labour required to obtain them.
DAVID RICARDO

Commodity Possession Require Source Value
The wheat bought by a farmer to sow is comparatively a fixed capital to the wheat purchased by a baker to make into loaves.
DAVID RICARDO

Capital Farmer Purchase
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 of circulating medium which it before possessed.
DAVID RICARDO

Nation Possession Quantity Wasted Time
Money is neither a material to work upon nor a tool to work with.
DAVID RICARDO

Material Money Tools Work
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.
DAVID RICARDO

Competition Contract Control Freedom Legislature Wage
For price is everywhere regulated by the return obtained by this last portion of capital, for which no rent whatever is paid.
DAVID RICARDO

Capital Pay Portion Price

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.

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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.

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