Book Quote by William Graham Sumner

The great force for forging a society into a solid mass has always been war.

— William Graham Sumner

One thing must be granted to the rich: they are goodnatured.

— William Graham Sumner

“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

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

We shall find that every effort to realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of liberty.

— William Graham Sumner

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

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

The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches.

— William Graham Sumner

Great captains of industry are as rare as great generals

— William Graham Sumner

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

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

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