Quotes from William Graham Sumner

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.

There is every indication that we are to see new developments of the power of aggregated capital to serve civilization, and that the new developments will be made right here in America.

It is remarkable that jealousy of individual property in land often goes along with very exaggerated doctrines of tribal or national property in land.

Hunger, love, vanity, and fear. There are four great motives of human action.

The great hinderance to the development of this continent has lain in the lack of capital.

Furthermore, the unearned increment from land appears in the United States as a gain to the first comers, who have here laid the foundations of a new State.

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.

The forgotten man. He is the clean, quiet, virtuous domestic citizen who pays his debts and his taxes and is never heard of outside his little circle. ... He works, he votes, generally he prays, but his chief business in life is to pay.

Joint-stock companies are yet in their infancy, and incorporated capital, instead of being a thing which can be overturned, is a thing which is becoming more and more indispensable.

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.

If you want war, nourish a doctrine. Doctrines are the most frightful tyrants to which men ever are subject.

We live in a war of two antagonistic ethical philosophies, the ethical policy taught in the books and schools, and the success policy.

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.

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

The forgotten man... He works, he votes, generally he prays, but his chief business in life is to pay.

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.

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.

We are to see the development of the country pushed forward at an unprecedented rate by an aggregation of capital, and a systematic application of it under the direction of competent men.

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.

There is no device whatever to be invented for securing happiness without industry, economy, and virtue.

The advantage of some is won by an equivalent loss of others.

Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays—but he always pays—yes, above all, he pays.

The lobby is the army of the plutocracy.

Liberty is an affair of laws and institutions which bring rights and duties into equilibrium. It is not at all an affair of selecting the proper class to rule.