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Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727 – 1781)


Usually referred to as simply "Turgot", was a French economist and statesman.
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Anne Robert Jacques Turgot
The productions of the earth require long and difficult preparations, before they are rendered fit to supply the wants of men.
The productions which the earth supplies to satisfy the different wants of man, will not, for the most part, administer to those wants, in the state nature affords them; it is necessary they should undergo different operations, and be prepared by art. Wheat must be converted into flour, then into bread; hides must be dressed or tanned; wool and cotton must be spun; silk must be taken from the cod; hemp and flax must be soaked, peeled, spun, and wove into different textures; then cut and sewed together again to make garments, &c. If the same man who cultivates on his own land these different articles, and who raises them to supply his wants, was obliged to perform all the intermediate operations himself, it is certain he would succeed very badly.
Turgot quotes
He snatched lightning from the sky and scepters from tyrants.
Turgot
All men now allow that if any human power could have stemmed the avalanche of the French Revolution, it would have been the reforms of Turgot.




Turgot was never dazzled; it was his greatness, if it was also his misfortune, to see men and the world exactly as they are.
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