“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.”
“The Challenge of Facts”, 1914 http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1914sumner.html.
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William Graham Sumner 9
American academic 1840–1910Related quotes
“If you owe a man a dollar, pay it; if you owe him a grudge, forget it, and always be kind.”
[Powderly, Terence, 'The Path I Trod: The Autobiography of Terence V. Powderly, 1940, Columbia University Press, 9781163178164, https://archive.org/stream/pathitrodautobio00powdrich, 34]
“Love is for children. I owe him a debt.”
Source: Introduction to Systems Philosophy (1972), p. 79.
Tiscali.it http://sport.tiscali.it/articoli/06/01/20/del_piero_fiorello.html
Attributed
Demea to Philo, Part X
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779)
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966)
Source: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
“An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not.”
Life Without Principle (1863)
Context: The community has no bribe that will tempt a wise man. You may raise money enough to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business. An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed.