108 Quotes by William Graham Sumner

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.

The lobby is the army of the plutocracy.

The advantage of some is won by an equivalent loss of others.

Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays—but he always pays—yes, above all, he pays.

What man ever blamed himself for his misfortune?

History is only a tiresome repetition of one story.

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.

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.