Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.
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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What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?
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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.
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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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People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.
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It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.
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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.
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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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People who pride themselves on their “complexity” and deride others for being “simplistic” should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.
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Extrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument.
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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.
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I am so old that I can remember when other people’s achievements were considered to be an inspiration, rather than a grievance.
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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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Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.
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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 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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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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It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
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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 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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The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves.
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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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Don’t you get tired of seeing so many “non-conformists” with the same non-conformist look?
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Intellect is not wisdom.
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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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The only people I truly envy are those who can play a musical instrument and those who can eat anything they want without gaining weight.
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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