Quotes by William Graham Sumner

William Graham Sumner

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.

Believe

Encouragement

Fathers Day

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.

Doctors

Numbers

Past

Darwin was as much of an emancipator as was Lincoln.

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.

Men

Military

Power

For A to sit down and think, What shall I do? is commonplace; but to think what B ought to do is interesting, romantic, moral, self-flattering, and public-spirited all at once. It satisfies a great number of human weaknesses at once. To go on and plan what a whole class of people ought to do is to feel one’s self a power on earth, to win a public position, to clothe one’s self in dignity. Hence we have an unlimited supply of reformers, philanthropists, humanitarians, and would-be managers-in-general of society.

Class

Thinking

Winning

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.

Foundation

Land

United States

Great captains of industry are as rare as great generals

Captains

Captains Of Industry

Organize

Here we are, then, once more back at the old doctrine – Laissez faire. Let us translate it into blunt English, and it will read, Mind your own business. It is nothing but the doctrine of liberty. Let every man be happy in his own way.

Liberty

Men

Mind Your Own Business

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

Four

Motivation

Vanity

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.

Country

War

Years

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Age

Agents

Annoyed

Attention

Believe

Blessing

Book

Capitalist

Captains

Captains Of Industry

Circles

Citizens

Class

Continents

Country

Crush

Development

Devices

Doctors

Doctrine

Done

Dream

Dues

Earth

Economy

Encouragement

England

Envy

Fathers Day

Force

Forgotten

Foundation

Four

Greed

Growing Up

Human Nature

Humorous

Hype

Ideas

Jealousy

Labor

Land

Law

Learning

Liberty

Life

Lust

Luxury

Mass

Mean

The Future Blueprint

Tool

The Home Therapist: Anti Anxiety

Tool

The Autobiography

Tool

The Behaviour Diary

Tool

The Dating Diary

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The Relationship Therapist

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Quotes by William Graham Sumner

William Graham Sumner

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.

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.

Darwin was as much of an emancipator as was Lincoln.

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.

Great captains of industry are as rare as great generals

Here we are, then, once more back at the old doctrine – Laissez faire. Let us translate it into blunt English, and it will read, Mind your own business. It is nothing but the doctrine of liberty. Let every man be happy in his own way.

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

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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