Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.
THOMAS SOWELLThe question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves.
More Thomas Sowell Quotes
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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.
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Intellect is not wisdom.
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People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid.
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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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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.
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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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Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty.
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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.
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No-one is equal to anything. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days.
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Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous.
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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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It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
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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.
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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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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.
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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.
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People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.
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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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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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Suppose you are wrong? How would you know? How would you test for that possibility?
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No government of the left has done as much for the poor as capitalism has. Even when it comes to the redistribution of income, the left talks the talk but the free market walks the walk.
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Heedless of the past, we are flying blind into the future.
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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.
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Freedom must be distinguished from democracy, with which it is often confused.
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Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.
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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