William Graham Sumner quotes

It is often said that the earth belongs to the race, as if raw land was a boon, or gift. (William Graham Sumner)
If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control. View quote
William Graham Sumner
The men who start out with the notion that the world owes them a living generally find that the world pays its debt in the penitentiary or the poor house. View quote
William Graham Sumner
Civil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare. View quote
William Graham Sumner
What we prepare for is what we shall get. View quote
William Graham Sumner
A good father believes that he does wisely to encourage enterprise, productive skill, prudent self-denial, and judicious expenditure on the part of his son. View quote
William Graham Sumner
The forgotten man... He works, he votes, generally he prays, but his chief business in life is to pay. View quote
William Graham Sumner
Men never cling to their dreams with such tenacity as at the moment when they are losing faith in them, and know it, but do not dare yet to confess it to themselves. View quote
William Graham Sumner
One thing must be granted to the rich: they are goodnatured. View quote
William Graham Sumner
Gentlemen, the time is coming when there will be two great classes, Socialists, and Anarchists. The Anarchists want the government to be nothing, and the Socialists want government to be everything. There can be no greater contrast. Well, the time will come when there will be only these two great parties, the Anarchists representing the laissez faire doctrine and the Socialists representing the extreme view on the other side, and when that time comes I am an Anarchist. View quote
William Graham Sumner
A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be, according to the fitness and tendency of things. Nature has set upon him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which have survived their usefulness. (William Graham Sumner)
The aggregation of large fortunes is not at all a thing to be regretted. View quote
William Graham Sumner
Moreover, there is an unearned increment on capital and on labor, due to the presence, around the capitalist and the laborer, of a great, industrious, and prosperous society. View quote
William Graham Sumner
It is remarkable that jealousy of individual property in land often goes along with very exaggerated doctrines of tribal or national property in land. View quote
William Graham Sumner
Labor organizations are formed, not to employ combined effort for a common object, but to indulge in declamation and denunciation, and especially to furnish an easy living to some officers who do not want to work. View quote
William Graham Sumner
There ought to be no laws to guarantee property against the folly of its possessors. View quote
William Graham Sumner
The criminal law needs to be improved to meet new forms of crime, but to denounce financial devices which are useful and legitimate because use is made of them for fraud, is ridiculous and unworthy of the age in which we live. View quote
William Graham Sumner
Furthermore, the unearned increment from land appears in the United States as a gain to the first comers, who have here laid the foundations of a new State. View quote
William Graham Sumner
I never have known a man of ordinary common-sense who did not urge upon his sons, from earliest childhood, doctrines of economy and the practice of accumulation. View quote
William Graham Sumner
Undoubtedly there are, in connection with each of these things, cases of fraud, swindling, and other financial crimes; that is to say, the greed and selfishness of men are perpetual. View quote
William Graham Sumner
It is a beneficent incident of the ownership of land that a pioneer who reduces it to use, and helps to lay the foundations of a new State, finds a profit in the increasing value of land as the new State grows up. (William Graham Sumner)
Any one who believes that any great enterprise of an industrial character can be started without labor must have little experience of life. View quote
William Graham Sumner
Then, again, the ability to organize and conduct industrial, commercial, or financial enterprises is rare; the great captains of industry are as rare as great generals. View quote
William Graham Sumner
The great hinderance to the development of this continent has lain in the lack of capital. View quote
William Graham Sumner
If you ever live in a country run by a committee, be on the committee. View quote
William Graham Sumner