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" 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
Practice
Never
Economy
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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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" Labor organizations are formed, not to employ combined effort for a common object, but to indulge in declamation and denunciation, and especially to furnish an easy living to some officers who do not want to work. "
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Want
" 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. "
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Say
" 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. "
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Great
Generals
" Any one who believes that any great enterprise of an industrial character can be started without labor must have little experience of life. "
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" The great hinderance to the development of this continent has lain in the lack of capital. "
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" We throw all our attention on the utterly idle question whether A has done as well as B, when the only question is whether A has done as well as he could. "
William Graham Sumner
Idle
Well
Attention
" 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. "
William Graham Sumner
More
Indispensable
Being
" The waste of capital, in proportion to the total capital, in this country between 1800 and 1850, in the attempts which were made to establish means of communication and transportation, was enormous. "
William Graham Sumner
Communication
Country
Transportation
" Civil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare. "
William Graham Sumner
Welfare
Status
Liberty
" It is remarkable that jealousy of individual property in land often goes along with very exaggerated doctrines of tribal or national property in land. "
William Graham Sumner
Individual
Jealousy
Land
" 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
Moment
Losing
Men
" Perhaps they do not recognize themselves, for a rich man is even harder to define than a poor one. "
William Graham Sumner
Poor
Rich
Define
" It is a beneficent incident of the ownership of land that a pioneer who reduces it to use, and helps to lay the foundations of a new State, finds a profit in the increasing value of land as the new State grows up. "
William Graham Sumner
Profit
Land
New
" The aggregation of large fortunes is not at all a thing to be regretted. "
William Graham Sumner
Large
Regretted
Thing
" 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. "
William Graham Sumner
America
Power
See
" 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
Father's Day
Skill
Father
" 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
Law
Meet
Live
" Men of routine or men who can do what they are told are not hard to find; but men who can think and plan and tell the routine men what to do are very rare. "
William Graham Sumner
Find
Think
Routine
" 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
Men
Living
House
" If you ever live in a country run by a committee, be on the committee. "
William Graham Sumner
Ever
You
Run
" The forgotten man... He works, he votes, generally he prays, but his chief business in life is to pay. "
William Graham Sumner
Life
He
Forgotten
" 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
Control
Free
I Can
" 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. "
William Graham Sumner
Gain
Land
New
" Before the tribunal of nature, a man has no more right to life than a rattlesnake; he has no more right to liberty than any wild beast; his right to the pursuit of happiness is nothing but a license to maintain the struggle for existence, if he can find within himself the powers with which to do it. "
William Graham Sumner
Man
Life
Struggle
" 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. "
William Graham Sumner
Forward
Men
See
" There ought to be no laws to guarantee property against the folly of its possessors. "
William Graham Sumner
Against
Guarantee
Laws
" What we prepare for is what we shall get. "
William Graham Sumner
Shall
Prepare
Get
" 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
Crush
Organization
Two
" 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
Just
Him
Process