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.
THOMAS SOWELLA society that puts equality – in the sense of equality of outcome – ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.
More Thomas Sowell Quotes
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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.
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What all these lofty and vague phrases boil down to is that the court can impose things that the voters don’t want and the Constitution does not require, but which are in vogue in circles to which the court responds.
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Suppose you are wrong? How would you know? How would you test for that possibility?
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No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.
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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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Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.
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Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty.
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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.
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For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before.
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The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.
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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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Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.
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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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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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Ronald Reagan had a vision of America. Barack Obama has a vision of Barack Obama.
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Age gives you an excuse for not being very good at things that you were not very good at when you were young.
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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.
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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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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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I have never understood why it is “greed” to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.
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There are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and posthumously.
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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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If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.
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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.
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Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.
THOMAS SOWELL