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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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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
Denial
Fruit
Blessing
Labor
Study
Boon
Enjoy
Fruits
Nature
Toil
Self
Blessings

More quotes by William Graham Sumner

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The great force for forging a society into a solid mass has always been war.
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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
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The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D. . . . I call C the Forgotten Man.
William Graham Sumner
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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
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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
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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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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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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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There ought to be no laws to guarantee property against the folly of its possessors.
William Graham Sumner
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History is only a tiresome repetition of one story.
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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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
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Darwin was as much of an emancipator as was Lincoln.
William Graham Sumner
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Great captains of industry are as rare as great generals
William Graham Sumner
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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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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
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It generally troubles them [the reformers] not a whit that their remedy implies a complete reconstruction of society, or even a reconstitution of human nature.
William Graham Sumner
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The great hindrance to the development of this continent has lain in the lack of capital.
William Graham Sumner
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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
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A drunkard in the gutter is just where he ought to be, according to the fitness and tendency of things. Nature has set upon him the process of decline and dissolution by which she removes things which have survived their usefulness.
William Graham Sumner