The Forgotten Man Quotes

“All history is only one long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their fellow-men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others and might shift the burdens of life from their own shoulders upon those of others.”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“There is no device whatever to be invented for securing happiness without industry, economy, and virtue.”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays—but he always pays—yes, above all, he pays.”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“The advantage of some is won by an equivalent loss of others.”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“What man ever blamed himself for his misfortune?”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“As soon as A observes something which seems to him to be wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X or, in the better case, what A, B and C shall do for X… What I want to do is to look up C… I call him the Forgotten Man… He is the man who never is thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, social speculator and philanthropist, and I hope to show you before I get through that he deserves your notice both for his character and for the many burdens which are laid upon him.”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“The Forgotten Man is delving away in patient industry, supporting his family, paying his taxes, casting his vote, supporting the church and the school, reading his newspaper, and cheering for the politician of his admiration, but he is the only one for whom there is no provision in the great scramble and the big divide.”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“Vice is its own curse. If we let nature alone, she cures vice by the most frightful penalties.”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“The pensions in England used to be given to aristocrats who had political power, in order to corrupt them. Here”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“A trades-union is an association of journeymen in a certain trade which has for one of its chief objects to raise wages in that trade. This object can be accomplished only by drawing more capital into the trade, or by lessening the supply of labor in it. To”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“Every man in society is bound in nature and reason to contribute to the strength and welfare of society. He ought to work, to be peaceful, honest, just, and virtuous. A”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“The whole system of social regulation by boards, commissioners, and inspectors consists in relieving negligent people of the consequences of their negligence and so leaving them to continue negligent without correction. That”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“One who takes a favor or submits to patronage demeans himself. He falls under obligation. He”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“Now who is the Forgotten Man? He is the simple, honest laborer, ready to earn his living by productive work. We pass him by because he is independent, self-supporting, and asks no favors. He does not appeal to the emotions or excite the sentiments. He”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“The philanthropists and humanitarians have their minds all full of the wretched and miserable whose case appeals to compassion, attacks the sympathies, takes possession of the imagination, and excites the emotions. They”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“But the weak who constantly arouse the pity of humanitarians and philanthropists are the shiftless, the imprudent, the negligent, the impractical, and the inefficient, or they are the idle, the intemperate, the extravagant, and the vicious. Now”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“Except the pauper, that is to say, the man who cannot earn his living or pay his way, there is no possible definition of a poor man. Except”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“Sentiment is thrown back into private life, into personal relations, and”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“We are agreed that the son shall not be disgraced even by the crime of the father, much less by the crime of a more distant relative. It”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“The institutions of civil liberty leave each man to run his career in life in his own way, only guaranteeing to him that whatever he does in the way of industry, economy, prudence, sound judgment, etc., shall redound to his own welfare and shall not be diverted to some one else’s benefit. Of course it is a necessary corollary that each man shall also bear the penalty of his own vices and his own mistakes. 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.”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“The law of the conservation of energy is not simply a law of physics; it is a law of the whole moral universe, and”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“What have our ancestors been striving for, under the name of civil liberty, for the last five hundred years? They have been striving to bring it about that each man and woman might live out his or her life according to his or her own notions of happiness and up to the measure of his or her own virtue and wisdom. How”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“In the definition the word “people” was used for a class or section of the population. It is now asserted that if that section rules, there can be no paternal, that is, undue, government. That doctrine, however, is the very opposite of liberty and contains the most vicious error possible in politics. The truth is that cupidity, selfishness, envy, malice, lust, vindictiveness, are constant vices of human nature. They”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“a government by the people can, in no case, become a paternal government, since its law-makers are its mandataries and servants carrying out its will, and not its fathers or its masters.” This,”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“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”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“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”
― William Graham Sumner, The Forgotten Man

“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