William Graham Sumner Quotes

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All quotes by William Graham Sumner: Duty Earth Effort Giving Human Nature Labor Liberty Life Property War Winning more...
  • Ideals are very often formed in the effort to escape from the hard task of dealing with facts, which is the function of science and art. There is no process by which to reach an ideal. There are no tests by which to verify it. It is therefore impossible to frame a proposition about an ideal which can be proved or disproved. It follows that the use of ideals is to be strictly limited to proper cases, and that the attempt to use ideals in social discussion does not deserve serious consideration.

    William Graham Sumner (2007). “Folkways: A Study of Mores, Manners, Customs and Morals”, p.201, Cosimo, Inc.
  • In England pensions used to be given to aristocrats, because aristocrats had political influence, in order to corrupt them. Here pensions are given to the great democratic mass, because they have political power, to corrupt them.

    William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.123, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • What we prepare for is what we shall get

    William Graham Sumner (1919). “War and Other Essays”
  • 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.

    William Graham Sumner (1924). “Selected Essays of 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.

    William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.40, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • History is only a tiresome repetition of one story.

    William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.27, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • 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 (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.114, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • It generally troubles them [the reformers] not a whit that their remedy implies a complete reconstruction of society, or even a reconstitution of human nature.

  • 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.

    William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.46, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • It is not the function of the State to make men happy. They must make themselves happy in their own way, and at their own risk. The functions of the State lie entirely in the conditions or chances under which the pursuit of happiness is carried on.

    William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.31, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • 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.

    William Graham Sumner (1919). “The Forgotten Man: And Other Essays”
  • If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee.

  • I have lived through the best years of this country's history. The next generations are going to see war and social calamities. I am glad I don't have to live on into them.

  • The State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man

    William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.108, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • There is no boon in nature. All the blessings we enjoy are the fruits of labor, toil, self-denial, and study.

    William Graham Sumner (1924). “Selected Essays of William Graham Sumner”
  • I have before me a newspaper slip on which a writer expresses the opinion that no one should be allowed to possess more than one million dollars' worth of property.

    William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.38, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • It used to be believed that the parent had unlimited claims on the child and rights over him. In a truer view of the matter, we are coming to see that the rights are on the side of the child and the duties on the side of the parent.

    The Forgotten Man's Almanac 14 October (1919)
  • The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches.

    William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.100, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • The great force for forging a society into a solid mass has always been war.

    William Graham Sumner (1914). “The challenge of facts: and other essays”
  • The lobby is the army of the plutocracy.

    William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.93, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • For A to sit down and think, What shall I do? is commonplace; but to think what B ought to do is interesting, romantic, moral, self-flattering, and public-spirited all at once. It satisfies a great number of human weaknesses at once. To go on and plan what a whole class of people ought to do is to feel one's self a power on earth, to win a public position, to clothe one's self in dignity. Hence we have an unlimited supply of reformers, philanthropists, humanitarians, and would-be managers-in-general of society.

    William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.97, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • 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.

  • If you want a war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men are ever subject, because doctrines get inside a man's reason and betray him against himself. Civilized men have done their fiercest fighting for doctrines.

    William Graham Sumner (1963). “Social Darwinism: selected essays”, Prentice Hall
  • If America becomes militant, it will be because its people choose to become such; it will be because they think that war and warlikeness are desirable.

    William Graham Sumner (1919). “War and Other Essays”
  • 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.

    William Graham Sumner (1903). “What Social Classes Owe to Each Other”, p.43, Ludwig von Mises Institute
  • Men educated in [the critical habit of thought]are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain.

  • Yet we are constantly annoyed, and the legislatures are kept constantly busy, by the people who have made up their minds that it is wise and conducive to happiness to live in a certain way, and who want to compel everybody else to live in their way.

  • 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.

    Life  
    William Graham Sumner (1913). “Earth-hunger and other essays”
  • The great hindrance to the development of this continent has lain in the lack of capital.

    "What Social Classes Owe to Each Other".
  • It would be hard to find a single instance of a direct assault by positive effort upon poverty, vice, and misery which has not either failed or, if it has not failed directly and entirely, has not entailed other evils greater than the one which it removed.

    "Sociology" (1881)
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  • We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 87 quotes from the Political scientist William Graham Sumner, starting from October 30, 1840! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!
    William Graham Sumner quotes about: Duty Earth Effort Giving Human Nature Labor Liberty Life Property War Winning