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21 " It is a beneficent incident of the ownership of land that a pioneer who reduces it to use, and helps to lay the foundations of a new State, finds a profit in the increasing value of land as the new State grows up. It would be unjust to take that profit away from him, or "
― William Graham Sumner , What Social Classes Owe to Each Other
22 " The laborer likewise gains by carrying on his labor in a strong, highly civilized, and well-governed State far more than he could gain with equal industry on the frontier or in the midst of anarchy. He "
23 " are those who have neglected their duties, and consequently have failed to get their rights. The "
24 " distribution of rewards and punishments between those who have done their duty and those who have not. "
25 " It is remarkable that jealousy of individual property in land often goes along with very exaggerated doctrines of tribal or national property in land. We "
26 " No doubt one great reason for the phenomenon which I bring to your attention is the passion for reflection and generalization which marks our period. Since the printing press has come into such wide use, we have all been encouraged to philosophize about things in a way which was unknown to our ancestors. They lived their lives out in positive contact with actual cases as they arose. They had little of this analysis, introspection, reflection and speculation which have passed into a habit and almost into a disease with us. Of "
― William Graham Sumner , The Forgotten Man
27 " A society based on contract, therefore, gives the utmost room and chance for individual development, and for all the self-reliance and dignity of a free man. That "
28 " Jobbery is the vice of plutocracy, and "
29 " The penalty of ceasing an aggressive behavior toward the hardships of life on the part of mankind is, that we go backward. We "
30 " The truth is, however, that science, as yet, has won less control of social phenomena than of any other class of phenomena. The most complex and difficult subject which we now have to study is the constitution of human society, the forces which operate in it, and the laws by which they act, and we know less about these things than about any others which demand our attention. In "
31 " Among respectable people a man who took upon himself the cares and expenses of a family before he had secured a regular trade or profession, or had accumulated some capital, and who allowed his wife to lose caste, and his children to be dirty, ragged, and neglected, would be severely blamed by the public opinion of the community. The "
32 " Taking men as they have been and are, they are subjects of passion, emotion, and instinct. Only "
33 " The idea of the "free man," as we understand it, is the product of a revolt against mediaeval and feudal ideas; and "
34 " Capital is only formed by self-denial, and "
35 " is not altogether a matter of fanfaronade when the American citizen calls himself a "sovereign." A member of a free democracy is, in a sense, a sovereign. He "
36 " Now, the plan of plundering each other produces nothing. It only wastes. All "
37 " The man who has capital has secured his future, won leisure which he can employ in winning secondary objects of necessity and advantage, and emancipated himself from those things in life which are gross and belittling. The "
38 " I know that the economists who say that if we could transmute lead into gold, it would certainly do us no good and might do great harm, are still regarded as unworthy of belief. Do "
39 " A member of a free democracy is, in a sense, a sovereign. He has no superior. He "
40 " Each great company will be known as controlled by one master mind. The reason for this lies in the great superiority of personal management over management by boards and committees. This "