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The millionaires are a product of natural selection ... the naturally selected agents of society for certain work. They get high wages and live in luxury, but the bargain is a good one for society.

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
Live
Luxury
Bargain
Work
Product
Bargains
Good
Products
Selected
Wealth
Millionaire
High
Selection
Society
Wages
Natural
Agents
Certain
Naturally
Millionaires

More quotes by William Graham Sumner

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We shall find that every effort to realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of liberty.
William Graham Sumner
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We live in a war of two antagonistic ethical philosophies, the ethical policy taught in the books and schools, and the success policy.
William Graham Sumner
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Nine-tenths of our measures for preventing vice are really protective towards it, because they ward off the penalty.
William Graham Sumner
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Society needs first of all to be free from meddlersthat is, to be let alone.
William Graham Sumner
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The invectives against capital in the hands of those who have it are double-faced, and when turned about are nothing but demands for capital in the hands of those who have it not, in order that they may do with it just what those who have it now are doing with it.
William Graham Sumner
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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 be happy in his own way.
William Graham Sumner
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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
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There is no such thing on this earth as something for nothing.
William Graham Sumner
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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
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The truth is that cupidity, selfishness, envy, malice, lust, vindictiveness, are constant vices of human nature.
William Graham Sumner
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If you allow a political catchword to go on and grow, you will awaken some day to find it standing over you, arbiter of your destiny, against which you are powerless.
William Graham Sumner
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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.
William Graham Sumner
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A fool is wiser in his own house than a sage is in another man's house.
William Graham Sumner
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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
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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
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The aggregation of large fortunes is not at all a thing to be regretted.
William Graham Sumner
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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
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It is a beneficent incident of the ownership of land that a pioneer who reduces it to use, and helps to lay the foundations of a new State, finds a profit in the increasing value of land as the new State grows up.
William Graham Sumner
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There is no boon in nature. All the blessings we enjoy are the fruits of labor, toil, self-denial, and study.
William Graham Sumner
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What man ever blamed himself for his misfortune?
William Graham Sumner