William Graham Sumner Quotes

We throw all our attention on the utterly idle question whether A has done as well as B, when the only question is whether A has done as well as he could.

William Graham Sumner

Recitation: by Male by Female

Author Biography

  • Author Profession: businessman
  • Nationality: american
  • Birth: October 30, 1840 - April 12, 1910

Topics

AttentionDoneQuestionIdleWell

I'm endlessly intrigued by stories, and I love helping someone to formulate his or her story. I can drift off when I'm reading pure abstraction, but the narratives of human lives hold my attention every time.

Andrew Solomon

LoveTimeReadingStorySomeone

It's easy to imagine ways the future can be ugly and depressing. It's harder, but more worthwhile, to imagine plausible ways we can make it better.

Stanley Schmidt

FutureUglyBetterEasyMoreHarder

Sometimes, I read that I'm this leftwing comic who just goes on about politics the whole time. Other times, I read that it's just surreal nonsense about crisps. It's both of those.

Stewart Lee

TimePoliticsSometimesNonsenseWho

I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity.

Robert E. Lee

ThinkBetterDoingRightSufferOur

If you get someone right out of college - and I meet a lot of them - you're not going to get a lot of experience at all, so you have to feel the ambition and desire, which is based on a lot of factors.

Mickey Drexler

ExperienceCollegeAmbitionSomeone

I think throughout the 20th century, for some reason, serious writers increasingly had contempt for the average reader. You can really see this in the letters of such people as Joyce and Virginia Woolf.

Michel Faber

PeopleThinkYouSeriousLetters

I really do like to work. I will work again. But on my terms.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus

WorkWillLikeAgainReallyTerms

Life has a way of setting things in order and leaving them be. Very tidy, is life.

Jean Anouilh

LifeLeavingWayTidyOrderThings

One of the most important things you learn from the Internet is that there is no 'them' out there. It's just an awful lot of 'us.'

Douglas Adams

InternetLearnYouImportantOutUs

Certainly another Brad Sherman might be annoying, but it isn't something society doesn't know how to deal with. But a new level of human being is something else.

Brad Sherman

SocietyNewKnowHumanHuman Being

Yes, DVDs are gone, but there is this wonderful Internet platform out there called YouTube.

Anthony Russo

InternetYouTubeYesOutGoneDVDs

For years and years, Christians have been singing about their wandering hearts. Our hearts need to be recalibrated and realigned and reoriented by God.

Tullian Tchividjian

GodSingingNeedYearsWandering

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