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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.

Thomas Sowell

Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.
THOMAS SOWELL

Exploitation Reality Rhetoric Substitute
Intellect is not wisdom.
THOMAS SOWELL

Intelelct One Liner Wisdom
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
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
People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid.
THOMAS SOWELL

Born Ignorant People Stupidity
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

Consequences Contribution Economics People Politics Society
When people are presented with the alternatives of hating themselves for their failure or hating others for their success, they seldom choose to hate themselves.
THOMAS SOWELL

Alternative Choose Failure Hate People Success
Bailing out people who made ill-advised mortgages makes no more sense that bailing out people who lost their life savings in Las Vegas casinos.
THOMAS SOWELL

Bail Economy Life Lost Mortage People
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
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Believe Judgement Play Racism Rule Standard
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
The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.
THOMAS SOWELL

Decide Economics Inspirational Liberty
It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites.
THOMAS SOWELL

Honesty Human Nature Man Panic Spread
Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.
THOMAS SOWELL

Absence Born Civil Effect Generation Late
Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.
THOMAS SOWELL

Evade Failure Ignorance Record Social
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
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
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Complex People Pride Realize Simplicity Truth
Economics is more than just a way to see patterns or to unravel puzzling anomalies.
THOMAS SOWELL

Economics Pattern Puzzle
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 Enough Lesson Politics Satisfaction Scarcity
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

Choose Decide Information Inspirational People Public
Many on the political left are so entranced by the beauty of their vision that they cannot see the ugly reality they are creating in the real world.
THOMAS SOWELL

Beautiful Creation Politics Ugly Vision World
Clearly, only very unequal intellectual and moral standing could justify having equality imposed, whether the people want it or not, as Dworkin suggests, and only very unequal power would make it possible.
THOMAS SOWELL

Economics Equality Justice People Politics Power
Suppose you are wrong? How would you know? How would you test for that possibility?
THOMAS SOWELL

Confidence Inspirational Possible Trust Wrong
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Ear Eat Instrument Music People True Weight Loss
It has nothing to say about philosophy or values, anymore than it has to say about music or literature.
THOMAS SOWELL

Literature Music Philosophy Value
When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.
THOMAS SOWELL

Discrimination People Politics Treatment

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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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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