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It is scary how easily so many people can be brainwashed by sheer repetition of a word.

Thomas Sowell

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
The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.
THOMAS SOWELL

Liar People Politics Reflection Satisfaction Shame
No government of the left has done as much for the poor as capitalism has. Even when it comes to the redistribution of income, the left talks the talk but the free market walks the walk.
THOMAS SOWELL

Capital Government Income Market Poor
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
People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid.
THOMAS SOWELL

Born Ignorant People Stupidity
It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.
THOMAS SOWELL

Enjoyment Ignorance Moral People Superior Try
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
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
When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.
THOMAS SOWELL

Discrimination People Politics Treatment
Suppose you are wrong? How would you know? How would you test for that possibility?
THOMAS SOWELL

Confidence Inspirational Possible Trust Wrong
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Afford Government Pay People Positive Thinking
As an entrepreneur in India put it: ‘Indians have learned from painful experience that the state does not work on behalf of the people. More often than not, it works on behalf of itself.
THOMAS SOWELL

Entrepreneur Experience Learning Pain People Work
The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.
THOMAS SOWELL

Decide Economics Inspirational Liberty
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

Explanation Help Let Go People Tuth Yourself
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Closer Depression Hurt Responsible Situation
Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous.
THOMAS SOWELL

Disastrous Ideas Reality Social Wonderful
Some people imagine that they are well informed because they have memorized a whole galaxy of trendy dogmas and fashionable attitudes.
THOMAS SOWELL

Attitude Fashion Galaxy Imagination Information People
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
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
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
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
In short, numbers are accepted as evidence when they agree with preconceptions, but not when they don’t.
THOMAS SOWELL

Acceptance Agree Evidence
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
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

Confuse Feelings Problem Reading Thinking Trouble
Ronald Reagan had a vision of America. Barack Obama has a vision of Barack Obama.
THOMAS SOWELL

Be Yourself Entrepreneur Intelligence Vision
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
Everyone may be called “comrade,” but some comrades have the power of life and death over other comrades.
THOMAS SOWELL

Death Friendship Life Partner Power

It is scary how easily so many people can be brainwashed by sheer repetition of a word.

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It is scary how easily so many people can be brainwashed by sheer repetition of a word.

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