The Works of David Ricardo: With a Notice of the Life and Writings of the Author

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Page 224 - The desire of food is limited in every man by the narrow capacity of the human stomach; but the desire of the conveniences and ornaments of building, dress, equipage, and household furniture, seems to have no limit or certain boundary.
Page 26 - When, in the progress of society, land of the second degree of fertility is taken into cultivation, rent immediately commences on that of the first quality, and the amount of that rent will depend on the difference in the quality of these two portions of land.
Page xxxiv - in that early and rude state of society, which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land, the proportion between the quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different objects seems to be the only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchanging them for one another.
Page 198 - When the capital of any country is not sufficient for all those . three purposes, in proportion as a greater share of it is employed in I agriculture, the greater will be the quantity of productive labour ] which it puts into motion within the country, as will likewise be the value which its employment adds to the annual produce of the \ land and labour of the society.
Page 24 - Rent is that portion'' of the produce of the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil.
Page 29 - Corn is not high because a rent is paid, but a rent is paid because corn is high ; and it has been justly observed, that no reduction would take place in the price of corn, although landlords should forego the whole of their rent.
Page 96 - Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State.
Page xxxiii - The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and, on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarce anything; scarce anything can be had in exchange for it.
Page 38 - The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.
Page 26 - At the same time, the rent of the first quality will rise, for that must always be above the rent of the second, by the difference between the produce which they yield with a given quantity of capital and labour. With every step in the progress of population...

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