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.

Sumner is often seen as a proto-libertarian. He was a polymath with numerous books and essays on American history economic history political theory sociology and anthropology. William Graham Sumner (October 30 1840 – April 12 1910) was an American academic and "held the first professorship in sociology" at Yale College.