William Graham Sumner

“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.”

“Perhaps they do not recognize themselves, for a rich man is even harder to define than a poor one.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I have before me a newspaper slip on which a writer expresses the opinion that no one should be allowed to possess more than one million dollars' worth of property.”

“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 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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“It is often said that the earth belongs to the race, as if raw land was a boon, or gift.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Any one who believes that any great enterprise of an industrial character can be started without labor must have little experience of life.”

“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.”

“One thing must be granted to the rich: they are goodnatured.”