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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

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

Black Black Lives Matter Comparison Funny Parents White
A society that puts equality – in the sense of equality of outcome – ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.
THOMAS SOWELL

Ending Equality Freedom Society
Extrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument.
THOMAS SOWELL

Argument Extrapolation Ground Refuge
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
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
There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.
THOMAS SOWELL

Conservative Solution Trade
Freedom must be distinguished from democracy, with which it is often confused.
THOMAS SOWELL

Confuse Democracy Different Freedom
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 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
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
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
Reality does not go away when it is ignored.
THOMAS SOWELL

Deep Healing Ignorance One Liner Reality
It would be very heard, for example, a basketball owner, no matter how racist he was, to try to operate without Blacks. It would be suicidal.
THOMAS SOWELL

Basketball Black Black Lives Matter Racism Suicide
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Achievement Destroy Equality Freedom Interest People
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

Battle Peace People Violence War
No-one is equal to anything. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days.
THOMAS SOWELL

Deep Difference Equality Himself Justice Man
What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?
THOMAS SOWELL

Blood History Human Politics Story Treasure
The media are less a window on reality, than a stage on which officials and journalists perform self-scripted, self-serving fictions.
THOMAS SOWELL

Fiction Journalist Media Perform Reality Window
Heedless of the past, we are flying blind into the future.
THOMAS SOWELL

Blind Fly Future Past
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Decide Deserve God Role
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Book Causation Correlation Forget Statistics
Suppose you are wrong? How would you know? How would you test for that possibility?
THOMAS SOWELL

Confidence Inspirational Possible Trust Wrong
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
Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.
THOMAS SOWELL

Competition Consumer Effect Government Job Protect
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
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

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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