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Yet we are constantly annoyed, and the legislatures are kept constantly busy, by the people who have made up their minds that it is wise and conducive to happiness to live in a certain way, and who want to compel everybody else to live in their way.

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
Way
Wise
Conducive
People
Everybody
Compel
Happiness
Legislature
Else
Annoyed
Certain
Kept
Live
Constantly
Made
Busy
Mind
Minds
Legislatures

More quotes by 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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What man ever blamed himself for his misfortune?
William Graham Sumner
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History is only a tiresome repetition of one story.
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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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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There is no device whatever to be invented for securing happiness without industry, economy, and virtue.
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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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
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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 aggregation of large fortunes is not at all a thing to be regretted.
William Graham Sumner
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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
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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
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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
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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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Any one who believes that any great enterprise of an industrial character can be started without labor must have little experience of life.
William Graham Sumner
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It is often said that the earth belongs to the race, as if raw land was a boon, or gift.
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
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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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There ought to be no laws to guarantee property against the folly of its possessors.
William Graham Sumner
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What we prepare for is what we shall get
William Graham Sumner