David Ricardo

The value of a commodity is not determined by its utility, but by the quantity of labour necessary to produce it.

The price of labour is determined by the cost of maintaining the labourer.

The profits of stock are inversely as wages.

The exchangeable value of commodities is regulated by the comparative quantity of labour expended on each.

The value of a commodity is not affected by the greater or less skill of the labourer, but by the quantity of labour he performs.

The rate of profit is determined by the proportion of the whole produce of labour which is allotted to the capitalist.

The value of money is regulated by the same principles as the value of other commodities.

The natural price of labour is that which is necessary to enable the labourers to subsist and to perpetuate their race.

The market price of labour may deviate from its natural price, but it has a constant tendency to conform to it.

The difficulty of obtaining food is the cause of high rents.

The value of a commodity is not affected by the greater or less fertility of the soil, but by the quantity of labour necessary to produce it.

Profits depend on the price of food, and the price of food depends on the quantity of labour necessary to produce it.

No man would pay rent for land, which produced him no net produce; and the net produce of land is always the difference between the produce obtained by the employment of a given quantity of capital and labour, and that which is necessary to pay the wages of that labour and the profits of that capital.

It is by the extension of the market, and by the consequent division of labour, that the produce of the country is increased.

The principle of population, as enunciated by Mr. Malthus, is of the utmost importance in the science of political economy.

It is not by the absolute, but by the comparative, cost of production, that the exchangeable value of commodities is regulated.

The quantity of money in a country must depend on the quantity of commodities to be circulated, and on the rapidity of their circulation.

A tax on wages is ultimately a tax on profits.

The accumulation of capital is the great means of increasing the productive powers of labour.

The natural tendency of profits is to fall.