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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.

Thomas Sowell

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.
THOMAS SOWELL

Decade Goodness History Past replace Social World
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Achievement Destroy Equality Freedom Interest People
One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.
THOMAS SOWELL

Complain Produce Refuse Sad Time
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Earn Greedy Human Nature Money
Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.
THOMAS SOWELL

Case God Identity Mistake Remember Trouble
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
THOMAS SOWELL

Consider Ignorance Knowledge Realize
Racism does not have a good track record. It’s been tried out for a long time and you’d think by now we’d want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management.
THOMAS SOWELL

Character Management Racism Record Time
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
No one chooses which culture to be born into or can be blamed for how that culture evolved in past centuries.
THOMAS SOWELL

Blame Century Choose Culture Past
Failure is part of the natural cycle of business. Companies are born, companies die, capitalism moves forward.
THOMAS SOWELL

Born Business Capital Company Failure Inspirational
Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty.
THOMAS SOWELL

Doer Specialty Talker
There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.
THOMAS SOWELL

Conservative Solution Trade
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Consitution Court Economics Government Politics
It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.
THOMAS SOWELL

DAngry Decision Imagination People Price Stupidity
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
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 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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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