William Graham Sumner Quotes
Best 10 What Social Classes Owe to Each Other Quotes by William Graham Sumner
What Social Classes Owe to Each Other 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 have survived their usefulness.”
“Every man and woman in society has one big duty. That is, to take care of his or her own self. This is a social duty. For, fortunately, the matter stands so that the duty of making the best of one's self individually is not a separate thing from the duty of filling one's place in society, but the two are one, and the latter is accomplished when the former is done.”
“He who would be well taken care of must take care of himself.”
“History is only a tiresome repetition of one story. Persons and classes have sought to win possession of the power of the State in order to live luxuriously out of the earnings of others.”
“In England pensions used to be given to aristocrats, because aristocrats had political influence, in order to corrupt them. Here pensions are given to the great democratic mass, because they have political power, to corrupt them.”
“It is not the function of the State to make men happy. They must make themselves happy in their own way, and at their own risk. The functions of the State lie entirely in the conditions or chances under which the pursuit of happiness is carried on.”
“The real danger of democracy is, that the classes which have the power under it will assume all the rights and reject all the duties-that is, that they will use the political power to plunder those-who-have.”
“The State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man.”
“The type and formula of most schemes of philanthropy or humanitarianism is this: A and B put their heads together to decide what C shall be made to do for D...
I call C the Forgotten Man.”
“We shall find that every effort to realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of liberty.”
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“Just like the athlete who has mapped out a plan to become one of the best athletes in the world by putting together a training program and executing it, he too should map out a financial plan from the beginning of his athletic career throughout every stage of his career.”
