Charles Sumner's Quotes

From the beginning of our history the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by compromise that human rights have been abandoned.

The age of chivalry has gone; the age of humanity has come.

The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, enlightened and decorated by the intellect of man.

I have never known a man who was sensual in his youth, who was high-minded when old.

No true and permanent fame can be founded except in labors which promote the happiness of mankind.

Moreover, there is an unearned increment on capital and on labor, due to the presence, around the capitalist and the laborer, of a great, industrious, and prosperous society.

The criminal law needs to be improved to meet new forms of crime, but to denounce financial devices which are useful and legitimate because use is made of them for fraud, is ridiculous and unworthy of the age in which we live.

The waste of capital, in proportion to the total capital, in this country between 1800 and 1850, in the attempts which were made to establish means of communication and transportation, was enormous.

Then, again, the ability to organize and conduct industrial, commercial, or financial enterprises is rare; the great captains of industry are as rare as great generals.

There is every indication that we are to see new developments of the power of aggregated capital to serve civilization, and that the new developments will be made right here in America.

Undoubtedly there are, in connection with each of these things, cases of fraud, swindling, and other financial crimes; that is to say, the greed and selfishness of men are perpetual.

We are to see the development of the country pushed forward at an unprecedented rate by an aggregation of capital, and a systematic application of it under the direction of competent men.

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.

The forgotten man... He works, he votes, generally he prays, but his chief business in life is to pay.

A good father believes that he does wisely to encourage enterprise, productive skill, prudent self-denial, and judicious expenditure on the part of his son.

Men never cling to their dreams with such tenacity as at the moment when they are losing faith in them, and know it, but do not dare yet to confess it to themselves.

It is the tendency of the social burdens to crush out the middle class, and to force society into an organization of only two classes, one at each social extreme.

The men who start out with the notion that the world owes them a living generally find that the world pays its debt in the penitentiary or the poor house.

Any one who believes that any great enterprise of an industrial character can be started without labor must have little experience of life.

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.