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 SOWELLTo 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.
More Thomas Sowell Quotes
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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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People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.
THOMAS SOWELL -
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 -
Economics is a study of cause and effect relationships in an economy.
THOMAS SOWELL -
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 -
One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.
THOMAS SOWELL -
Reality does not go away when it is ignored.
THOMAS SOWELL -
When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.
THOMAS SOWELL -
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.
THOMAS SOWELL -
Whenever someone refers to me as someone “who happens to be black,” I wonder if they realize that both my parents are black. If I had turned out to be Scandinavian or Chinese, people would have wondered what was going on.
THOMAS SOWELL -
The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.
THOMAS SOWELL -
No amount of taxation is ever described as “greed” on the part of government or the clientele of government.
THOMAS SOWELL -
Freedom must be distinguished from democracy, with which it is often confused.
THOMAS SOWELL -
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 -
There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.
THOMAS SOWELL