Quote

The State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man

William Graham Sumner

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Must
Latter
Men
Saved
Forgotten
Taking
State
Cent
Cannot
Cents
States
Ministry
Without
Produced

More quotes by William Graham Sumner

Image
It is often said that the earth belongs to the race, as if raw land was a boon, or gift.
William Graham Sumner
Image
The lobby is the army of the plutocracy.
William Graham Sumner
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 the penitentiary or the poor house.
William Graham Sumner
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee.
William Graham Sumner
Image
A good father believes that he does wisely to encourage enterprise, productive skill, prudent self-denial, and judicious expenditure on the part of his son.
William Graham Sumner
Image
Men educated in [the critical habit of thought]are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in all degrees, without certainty and without pain.
William Graham Sumner
Image
If I want to be free from any other man's dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control.
William Graham Sumner
Image
A wiser rule would be to make up your mind soberly what you want, peace or war, and then to get ready for what you want for what we prepare for is what we shall get.
William Graham Sumner
Image
Nine-tenths of our measures for preventing vice are really protective towards it, because they ward off the penalty.
William Graham Sumner
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 practice of accumulation.
William Graham Sumner
Image
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
Image
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
Image
There is no device whatever to be invented for securing happiness without industry, economy, and virtue.
William Graham Sumner
Image
What man ever blamed himself for his misfortune?
William Graham Sumner
Image
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
Image
The State, it cannot be too often repeated, does nothing and can give nothing which it does not take from somebody. The Forgotten Man works and votes -generally he prays-but his chief business in life is to pay.
William Graham Sumner
Image
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
Image
All history is only one long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their fellow-men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others and might shift the burdens of life from their own shoulders upon those of others.
William Graham Sumner