108 Quotes by William Graham Sumner

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.

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

The aggregation of large fortunes is not at all a thing to be regretted.

The great hinderance to the development of this continent has lain in the lack of capital.

Labor organizations are formed, not to employ combined effort for a common object, but to indulge in declamation and denunciation, and especially to furnish an easy living to some officers who do not want to work.

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.

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.

There ought to be no laws to guarantee property against the folly of its possessors.