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Government “planning” is not an alternative to chaos. It is a pre-emption of other people’s plans.

Thomas Sowell

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
No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.
THOMAS SOWELL

Compassion Law People Tax
There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.
THOMAS SOWELL

Conservative Solution Trade
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
Extrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument.
THOMAS SOWELL

Argument Extrapolation Ground Refuge
Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous.
THOMAS SOWELL

Disastrous Ideas Reality Social Wonderful
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
Failure is part of the natural cycle of business. Companies are born, companies die, capitalism moves forward.
THOMAS SOWELL

Born Business Capital Company Failure Inspirational
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.
THOMAS SOWELL

Intelligance One Liner Philosophy Politics Smart Thinking
The really painful surprise is that so many people based their hopes on his words, rather than on the record of his deeds.
THOMAS SOWELL

Deed Hope Pain People Record Surprise
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
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Advocate Government Party Politics Understand
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
Justice at all costs’ is not justice.
THOMAS SOWELL

Cost Deep Injustice Justice One Liner
To 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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Destroy People Responsiblity Role Society Vision
The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.
THOMAS SOWELL

Department Diversity Republic Social Time
One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.
THOMAS SOWELL

Complain Produce Refuse Sad Time

Government “planning” is not an alternative to chaos. It is a pre-emption of other people’s plans.

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Government “planning” is not an alternative to chaos. It is a pre-emption of other people’s plans.

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