Nothing is easier than to get peaceful people to renounce violence, even when they provide no concrete ways to prevent violence from others.
THOMAS SOWELLThe really painful surprise is that so many people based their hopes on his words, rather than on the record of his deeds.
More Thomas Sowell Quotes
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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.
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A society that puts equality – in the sense of equality of outcome – ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.
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There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.
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What is called an educated person is often someone who has had a dangerously superficial exposure to a wide spectrum of subjects.
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Extrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument.
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If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly.
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Heedless of the past, we are flying blind into the future.
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People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.
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I am so old that I can remember when other people’s achievements were considered to be an inspiration, rather than a grievance.
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Reality does not go away when it is ignored.
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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.
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The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.
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The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.
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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.
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Some people imagine that they are well informed because they have memorized a whole galaxy of trendy dogmas and fashionable attitudes.
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The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people’s money away quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.
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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.
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It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
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When people are presented with the alternatives of hating themselves for their failure or hating others for their success, they seldom choose to hate themselves.
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If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.
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Economics is more than just a way to see patterns or to unravel puzzling anomalies.
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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.
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Suppose you are wrong? How would you know? How would you test for that possibility?
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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.
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It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.
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Whenever someone refers to me as someone “who happens to be black,” I wonder if they realize that both my parents are black. If I had turned out to be Scandinavian or Chinese, people would have wondered what was going on.
THOMAS SOWELL