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Suppose you are wrong? How would you know? How would you test for that possibility?

Thomas Sowell

We should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.
THOMAS SOWELL

Concentration Ideas Institution Surprise Survive Work
The only people I truly envy are those who can play a musical instrument and those who can eat anything they want without gaining weight.
THOMAS SOWELL

Ear Eat Instrument Music People True Weight Loss
Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous.
THOMAS SOWELL

Disastrous Ideas Reality Social Wonderful
Ronald Reagan had a vision of America. Barack Obama has a vision of Barack Obama.
THOMAS SOWELL

Be Yourself Entrepreneur Intelligence Vision
Many on the political left are so entranced by the beauty of their vision that they cannot see the ugly reality they are creating in the real world.
THOMAS SOWELL

Beautiful Creation Politics Ugly Vision World
There are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and posthumously.
THOMAS SOWELL

Honesty Sarcastic Truth
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Complex People Pride Realize Simplicity Truth
Freedom must be distinguished from democracy, with which it is often confused.
THOMAS SOWELL

Confuse Democracy Different Freedom
If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else’s expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.
THOMAS SOWELL

Complain Government Money Politics Promise Vote
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
Nothing is easier than to get peaceful people to renounce violence, even when they provide no concrete ways to prevent violence from others.
THOMAS SOWELL

Battle Peace People Violence War
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 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today.
THOMAS SOWELL

Believe Judgement Play Racism Rule Standard
The history of which peoples, nations, or civilizations have conquered or enslaved which other peoples, nations, or civilizations has been largely a history of who has been in a position to do so.
THOMAS SOWELL

Civil History Nation People Position
The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.
THOMAS SOWELL

Confuse Feelings Problem Reading Thinking Trouble
Economics is more than just a way to see patterns or to unravel puzzling anomalies.
THOMAS SOWELL

Economics Pattern Puzzle
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Acceptance Education Ideas Intelligence People Virtue
The government is indeed an institution, but “the market” is nothing more than an option for each individual to chose among numerous existing institutions, or to fashion new arrangements suited to his own situation and taste.
THOMAS SOWELL

Arrangement Economics Government Institution Market Situation
Everyone may be called “comrade,” but some comrades have the power of life and death over other comrades.
THOMAS SOWELL

Death Friendship Life Partner Power
Clearly, only very unequal intellectual and moral standing could justify having equality imposed, whether the people want it or not, as Dworkin suggests, and only very unequal power would make it possible.
THOMAS SOWELL

Economics Equality Justice People Politics Power
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
THOMAS SOWELL

Consider Ignorance Knowledge Realize
As history has also shown, especially in the twentieth century, one of the first things an ideologue will do after achieving absolute power is kill.
THOMAS SOWELL

Achievement Century History Ideas Kill Power
We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did.
THOMAS SOWELL

Closer Depression Hurt Responsible Situation
Suppose you are wrong? How would you know? How would you test for that possibility?
THOMAS SOWELL

Confidence Inspirational Possible Trust Wrong
It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites.
THOMAS SOWELL

Honesty Human Nature Man Panic Spread
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
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
A society in which such decisions can only be made by males has thrown away half of its knowledge, talents, and insights.
THOMAS SOWELL

Decision Insight Knowledge Society Talent Throw

Suppose you are wrong? How would you know? How would you test for that possibility?

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Suppose you are wrong? How would you know? How would you test for that possibility?

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