William Graham Sumner

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We shall find that every effort to realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of liberty.