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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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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
Vices
Envy
Constant
Nature
Cupidity
Truth
Vindictiveness
Human
Malice
Humans
Selfishness
Lust

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The great force for forging a society into a solid mass has always been war.
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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.
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But we have inherited a vast number of social ills which never came from Nature. They are the complicated products of all the tinkering, muddling, and blundering of social doctors in the past.
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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.
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There ought to be no laws to guarantee property against the folly of its possessors.
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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.
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One thing must be granted to the rich: they are goodnatured.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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It is often said that the earth belongs to the race, as if raw land was a boon, or gift.
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What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.
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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.
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The taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches.
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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.
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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.
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Hunger, love, vanity, and fear. There are four great motives of human action.
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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.
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History is only a tiresome repetition of one story.
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