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Any prosperity policy is a delusion and a path to ruin. There is no economic lesson which the people of the United States need to take to heart more than that. In the second place the Spanish mistakes arose, in part, from confusing the public treasury with the national wealth.

— William Graham Sumner

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More quotes by William Graham Sumner

It is often said that the earth belongs to the race, as if raw land was a boon, or gift.

He is the man who never is thought of. … He works, he votes, generally he prays—but he always pays.

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.

What we prepare for is what we shall get.

The man who started with the notion that the world owed him a living would once more find, as he does now, that the world pays him its debt in the state prison.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: William Graham Sumner (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.