William Graham Sumner Quotes

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...

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.

About Author

William Graham Sumner (October 30, 1840 – April 12, 1910) was an American clergyman, social scientist, and neoclassical liberal. He taught social sciences at Yale University, where he held the nation's first professorship in sociology and became one of the most influential teachers at any major school.
Sumner wrote extensively on the social sciences, penning numerous books and essays on ethics, American history, economic history, political theory, sociology, and anthropology. He supported laissez-faire economics, free markets, and the gold standard, in addition to coining the term "ethnocentrism" to identify the roots of imperialism, which he strongly opposed. As a spokesman against elitism, he was in favor of the "forgotten man" of the middle class—a term he coined. He had a prolonged influence on American conservatism.

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 h...

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

He who would be well taken care of must take care of himself.

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.

What we prepare for is what we shall get.

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

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.

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.