The forgotten man... He works, he votes, generally he prays, but his chief business in life is to pay.
William Graham SumnerRead
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.
Interpretation
Expecting the world to provide for you can lead to negative consequences.
This quote emphasizes the idea that those who believe they are entitled to a life of ease and support without effort or contribution often end up facing severe repercussions, such as poverty or incarceration. It highlights the importance of personal responsibility and the consequences of entitlement, suggesting that a lack of initiative can lead to unfortunate outcomes.
In practice
In a motivational speech about the importance of hard work and personal responsibility.
The forgotten man... He works, he votes, generally he prays, but his chief business in life is to pay.
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.
We shall find that every effort to realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of liberty.
The Forgotten Man is delving away in patient industry, supporting his family, paying his taxes, casting his vote, supporting the church and the school, reading his newspaper, and cheering for the politician of his admiration, but he is the only one for whom there is no provision in the great scramble and the big divide. Such is the Forgotten Man. He works, he votes, generally he prays β but he always pays β yes, above all, he pays.
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.
Civil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare.
Sometimes the best way to baffle them is to make moves that have no purpose, or even seem to work against you
If I had lost a leg, I would tell them, instead of a boy, no one would ever ask me if I was 'over it'. They would ask me how I was doing learning to walk without my leg. I was learning to walk and to breathe and to live without Wade. And what I was learning is that it was never going to be the life I had before.
Come on, say it again. I'm a perfect devil. Tell me how bad I am. It makes me feel so good!
Information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom. Reading - even browsing - an old book can yield sustenance denied by a database search. Patience is a virtue, gluttony a sin.
It took me less than half a lifetime to realize that regret is one of the few guaranteed certainties. Sooner or later everything is touched by it, despite our naive and senseless hope that just this time we will be spared its cold hand on our heart.
It always takes longer than you expect, even if you take Hofstadter's Law into account.
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