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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.

Thomas Sowell

Economics is a study of cause and effect relationships in an economy.
THOMAS SOWELL

Cause Economics Economy Effect Relationship Study
When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.
THOMAS SOWELL

Discrimination People Politics Treatment
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
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Believe Claim Liberty People Politics Solution
Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous.
THOMAS SOWELL

Disastrous Ideas Reality Social Wonderful
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Freedom Government Liberty Money People World
Extrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument.
THOMAS SOWELL

Argument Extrapolation Ground Refuge
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Education Evidence Intellectual Logic Student
We should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.
THOMAS SOWELL

Concentration Ideas Institution Surprise Survive Work
What is called an educated person is often someone who has had a dangerously superficial exposure to a wide spectrum of subjects.
THOMAS SOWELL

DAngry Education Exposure Person Subject
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
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 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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Assume Automatic FAction Government Market Reason
Reality does not go away when it is ignored.
THOMAS SOWELL

Deep Healing Ignorance One Liner Reality
Age gives you an excuse for not being very good at things that you were not very good at when you were young.
THOMAS SOWELL

Age Care Courtesy Excuse Goodness Humble Young
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Complain Government Money Politics Promise Vote
There are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and posthumously.
THOMAS SOWELL

Honesty Sarcastic Truth
It has nothing to say about philosophy or values, anymore than it has to say about music or literature.
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Literature Music Philosophy Value
People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid.
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Born Ignorant People Stupidity
Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.
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Exploitation Reality Rhetoric Substitute
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Achievement Century History Ideas Kill Power
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Dead Enlight Experience Human Past Tradition
Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty.
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Doer Specialty Talker
People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.
THOMAS SOWELL

Hand People Time Waste Wasted Time Work
What then is the intellectual advantage of civilization over primitive savagery? It is not necessarily that each civilized man has more knowledge but that he requires far less.
THOMAS SOWELL

Advantage Civil Economics Knowledge Man Requirement
Everyone may be called “comrade,” but some comrades have the power of life and death over other comrades.
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Death Friendship Life Partner Power
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

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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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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Popular Authors

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