William Graham Sumner Quotes

• Society needs first of all to be free from meddlers – that is, to be let alone.

  William Graham Sumner

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• The law of the survival of the fittest was not made by man and cannot be abrogated by man. We can only by interfering with it, produce the survival of the unfittest.

  William Graham Sumner

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• 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.

  William Graham Sumner

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• What we prepare for is what we shall get.

  William Graham Sumner

• We throw all our attention on the utterly idle question whether A has done as well as B, when the only question is whether A has done as well as he could.

  William Graham Sumner

• We are to see the development of the country pushed forward at an unprecedented rate by an aggregation of capital, and a systematic application of it under the direction of competent men.

  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.

  William Graham Sumner

• There ought to be no laws to guarantee property against the folly of its possessors.

  William Graham Sumner

• There is every indication that we are to see new developments of the power of aggregated capital to serve civilization, and that the new developments will be made right here in America.

  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.

  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 establish means of communication and transportation, was enormous.

  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.

  William Graham Sumner

• The great hinderance to the development of this continent has lain in the lack of capital.

  William Graham Sumner

• The forgotten man… He works, he votes, generally he prays, but his chief business in life is to pay.

  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.

  William Graham Sumner

• The aggregation of large fortunes is not at all a thing to be regretted.

  William Graham Sumner

• Perhaps they do not recognize themselves, for a rich man is even harder to define than a poor one.

  William Graham Sumner

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

  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.

  William Graham Sumner

• Men of routine or men who can do what they are told are not hard to find; but men who can think and plan and tell the routine men what to do are very rare.

  William Graham Sumner

William Graham Sumner (36)

Birth:	30th October, 1840
Death:	12th April, 1910
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Academic, Anthropologist, Critic, Historian

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Today's Anniversary - 31st May

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• 1996 - Timothy Leary
• 2004 - Robert Quine
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