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 SOWELLExtrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument.
More Thomas Sowell Quotes
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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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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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Liberals seem to assume that, if you don’t believe in their particular political solutions, then you don’t really care about the people that they claim to want to help.
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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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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.
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No amount of taxation is ever described as “greed” on the part of government or the clientele of government.
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We should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.
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The purpose of education is to give the student the intellectual tools to analyze, whether verbally or numerically, and to reach conclusions based on logic and evidence.
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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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Justice at all costs’ is not justice.
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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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The media are less a window on reality, than a stage on which officials and journalists perform self-scripted, self-serving fictions.
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Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options.
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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.
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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.
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It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.
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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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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.
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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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Nothing is easier than to get peaceful people to renounce violence, even when they provide no concrete ways to prevent violence from others.
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Heedless of the past, we are flying blind into the future.
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It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites.
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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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Economics is a study of cause and effect relationships in an economy.
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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.
THOMAS SOWELL