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Sowell: Thomas Sowell Quotes
- “Since this is an era when many people are concerned about “fairness” and “social justice,” what is your fair share of what someone else has worked for?”
- “The vision of the anointed is one in which ills as poverty, irresponsible sex, and crime derive primarily from society, rather than from individual choices and behavior. To believe in personal responsibility would be to destroy the whole special role of the anointed, whose vision casts them in the role of rescuers of people treated unfairly by society.”
- “Intellect is not wisdom.”
- “There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.”
- “The fact that the market is not doing what we wish it would do is no reason to automatically assume that the government would do better.”
- “No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems—of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.”
- “What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?”
- “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 and medications somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it. “
- “There are only two ways of telling the complete truth—anonymously and posthumously.”
- “Extrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument.”
- “There are few talents more richly rewarded with both wealth and power, in countries around the world, than the ability to convince backward people that their problems are caused by other people who are more advanced.
- “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
- “Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.”
- “When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”
- One of the consequences of such notions as “entitlements” is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.
- “Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.”
- “What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?”
- “Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous. Among people of every race, color, and creed, all around the world, socialism has led to hunger in countries that used to have surplus food to export…
- Nevertheless, for many of those who deal primarily in ideas, socialism remains an attractive idea – in fact, seductive. Its every failure is explained away as due to the inadequacies of particular leaders.”
- “Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on “income distribution,” The cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.”
- “I have never understood why it is “greed” to what to keep the money you earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.”
- “Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.”
- “If politicians stopped meddling with things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.”
- “Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism.”
- “Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.”
- “Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.”
- “It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites.”
- “People who pride themselves on their “complexity” and deride others for being “simplistic” should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.”
- “The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.”