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It is the tendency of the social burdens to crush out the middle class, and to force society into an organization of only two classes, one at each social extreme.
William Graham Sumner
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William Graham Sumner
Age: 69 †
Born: 1840
Born: October 30
Died: 1910
Died: April 12
Anthropologist
Historian
Philosopher
Political Scientist
Sociologist
University Teacher
Paterson
New Jersey
William Graham
William Grayham
Middle
Tendency
Class
Crush
Society
Extreme
Force
Tendencies
Social
Extremes
Two
Injustice
Burden
Burdens
Organization
Classes
More quotes by William Graham Sumner
A fool is wiser in his own house than a sage is in another man's house.
William Graham Sumner
The class distinctions simply result from the different degrees of success with which men have availed themselves of the chances which were presented to them. Instead of endeavoring to redistribute the acquisitions which have been made between the existing classes, our aim should be to increase, multiply, and extend the chances.
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
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
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
History is only a tiresome repetition of one story. Persons and classes have sought to win possession of the power of the State in order to live luxuriously out of the earnings of others
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 of out of his little circle.
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.
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.
William Graham Sumner
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
He who would be well taken care of must take care of himself.
William Graham Sumner
Great captains of industry are as rare as great generals
William Graham Sumner
If you want war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men ever are subject.
William Graham Sumner
The lobby is the army of the plutocracy.
William Graham Sumner
Everywhere you go on the continent of Europe at this hour you see the conflict between militarism and industrialism. You see the expansion of industrial power pushed forward by the energy, hope, and thrift of men, and you see the development arrested, diverted, crippled, and defeated by measures which are dictated by military considerations.
William Graham Sumner
Darwin was as much of an emancipator as was Lincoln.
William Graham Sumner
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.
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.
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
Nine-tenths of our measures for preventing vice are really protective towards it, because they ward off the penalty.
William Graham Sumner