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Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on “income distribution,” the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.

Thomas Sowell

The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves.
THOMAS SOWELL

Decide Deserve God Role
One of the first things taught in introductory statistics textbooks is that correlation is not causation. It is also one of the first things forgotten.
THOMAS SOWELL

Book Causation Correlation Forget Statistics
Economics is a study of cause and effect relationships in an economy.
THOMAS SOWELL

Cause Economics Economy Effect Relationship Study
The really painful surprise is that so many people based their hopes on his words, rather than on the record of his deeds.
THOMAS SOWELL

Deed Hope Pain People Record Surprise
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?
THOMAS SOWELL

Black Lives Matter Era Justice People Social
The media are less a window on reality, than a stage on which officials and journalists perform self-scripted, self-serving fictions.
THOMAS SOWELL

Fiction Journalist Media Perform Reality Window
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Consequences Contribution Economics People Politics Society
It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.
THOMAS SOWELL

Intelligance One Liner Philosophy Politics Smart Thinking
It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.
THOMAS SOWELL

Enjoyment Ignorance Moral People Superior Try
Liberals seem to assume that, if you don’t believe in their particular political solutions, then you don’t really care about the people that they claim to want to help.
THOMAS SOWELL

Believe Claim Liberty People Politics Solution
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Explanation Help Let Go People Tuth Yourself
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Assume Automatic FAction Government Market Reason
A society that puts equality – in the sense of equality of outcome – ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.
THOMAS SOWELL

Ending Equality Freedom Society
Some people imagine that they are well informed because they have memorized a whole galaxy of trendy dogmas and fashionable attitudes.
THOMAS SOWELL

Attitude Fashion Galaxy Imagination Information People
Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous.
THOMAS SOWELL

Disastrous Ideas Reality Social Wonderful
As an entrepreneur in India put it: ‘Indians have learned from painful experience that the state does not work on behalf of the people. More often than not, it works on behalf of itself.
THOMAS SOWELL

Entrepreneur Experience Learning Pain People Work

Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on “income distribution,” the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.

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Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on “income distribution,” the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Thomas Sowell Quotes