François Quesnay
French economist who created the Tableau Économique, modeling economic flows.
Most quoted
"Let there be full freedom of commerce; for the surest, the most exact, the most profitable, to the nation and to the sovereign, internal and external police of commerce, is the freedom of competition."
— from Tableau Économique, 1758
"The nation is reduced to three classes of citizens: the productive class, the sterile class, and the proprietary class."
— from Tableau Économique, 1758
"The sterile class is composed of all citizens occupied in other services and works than those of agriculture."
— from Tableau Économique, 1758
All quotes by François Quesnay (105)
The government should ensure the security of property.
The economic order is a divine order.
The more a nation imports raw materials and exports manufactured goods, the poorer it becomes.
The true wealth of a nation is the abundance of its agricultural products.
The government should promote agricultural education.
The economic system is a self-regulating mechanism.
The more a nation consumes its own agricultural products, the more it prospers.
The true wealth of a nation is not in its gold and silver, but in its land.
The government should ensure the free circulation of goods and money.
The economic order is a harmonious order.
Agriculture is the sole source of wealth and the foundation of all prosperity.
The natural order is the most perfect; let us not disturb it with artificial laws.
Laissez faire, laissez passer – allow the economy to flow freely like nature intends.
The sovereign should act as the sun: illuminate the path but not interfere with the growth.
Wealth is not created in cities but born in the fields through the labor of the cultivator.
Taxes on land alone can sustain the state without burdening the productive classes.
The circulation of goods mirrors the circulation of blood in the body politic.
True liberty is found in the harmony of natural economic laws.
Manufactures are but a secondary transformation of the earth's bounty.
The farmer is the true creator of value; all others are mere distributors.
Contemporaries of François Quesnay
Other Economicss born within 50 years of François Quesnay (1694–1774).