A collection of quotes by Thomas Sowell.
Thomas Sowell (N/A)
Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.
Thomas Sowell
The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.
The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.
There are only two ways of telling the complete truth--anonymously and posthumously.
Intellectuals may like to think of themselves as people who speak truth to power but too often they are people who speak lies to gain power.
The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.
People who identify themselves as conservatives donate money to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes.
People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.
What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.
One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them.
It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring.
The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending.
Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.
Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.
If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.
The real minimum wage is zero unemployment.
The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.
Too much of what is called 'education' is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.
