Here we are, then, once more back at the old doctrine - Laissez faire. Let us translate it into blunt English, and it will read, Mind your own business. It is nothing but the doctrine of liberty. Let every man… — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
Every man and woman in society has one big duty. That is, to take care of his or her own self. This is a social duty. For, fortunately, the matter stands so that the duty of making the best of… — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
The great force for forging a society into a solid mass has always been war. — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
One thing must be granted to the rich: they are goodnatured. — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
“Can anyone imagine that the masterfulness, the overbearing disposition, the greed of gain, and the ruthlessness in methods, which are the faults of the… — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
The waste of capital, in proportion to the total capital, in this country between 1800 and 1850, in the attempts which were made to… — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
We shall find that every effort to realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of liberty. — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
Who is the Forgotten Man? He is the clean, quiet, virtuous, domestic citizen, who pays his debts and his taxes and is never heard… — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
The men who start out with the notion that the world owes them a living generally find that the world pays its 'debt' in… — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches. — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
Whatever capital you divert to the support of a shiftless and good-for-nothing person is so much diverted from some other employment, and that means… — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
The yearning after equality [in economic outcome] is the offspring of envy and covetousness, and there is no possible plan for satisfying that yearning… — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
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… — William Graham Sumner Copy Share Image
![“The yearning after equality [in economic outcome] is the offspring of envy and covetousness, and there is no possible plan for satisfying that yearning which can do aught else than rob A to give to B; consequently all such plans nourish some of the meanest vices of human nature, waste capital, and…” quote by William Graham Sumner](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/9b4/william-graham-sumner-5011_can-do_the-yearning-after-equality-in-economic_454035.jpg)
