William Graham Sumner - Folkways (1906)

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In the New Testament it is taught that willing and voluntary service to others is the highest duty and glory in human life.... The men of talent are constantly forced to serve the rest. They make the discoveries and inventions, order the battles, write the books, and produce the works of art. The benefit and enjoyment go to the whole. There are those who joyfully order their own lives so that they may serve the welfare of mankind.

William Graham Sumner

We live in a war of two antagonistic ethical philosophies, the ethical policy taught in the books and schools, and the success policy.

William Graham Sumner

Where torture has been long applied we find that it is developed to grades of incredible horror.

William Graham Sumner

If we put together all that we have learned from anthropology and ethnography about primitive men and primitive society, we perceive that the first task of life is to live. Men begin with acts, not with thoughts.

William Graham Sumner

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

William Graham Sumner

Hunger, love, vanity, and fear. There are four great motives of human action.

William Graham Sumner