Some people imagine that they are well informed because they have memorized a whole galaxy of trendy dogmas and fashionable attitudes.
THOMAS SOWELLThere are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.
More Thomas Sowell Quotes
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It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.
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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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One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them.
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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.
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People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid.
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What is called an educated person is often someone who has had a dangerously superficial exposure to a wide spectrum of subjects.
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We should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.
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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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Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on “income distribution,” the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.
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Freedom must be distinguished from democracy, with which it is often confused.
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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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Suppose you are wrong? How would you know? How would you test for that possibility?
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There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.
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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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In short, numbers are accepted as evidence when they agree with preconceptions, but not when they don’t.
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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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If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else’s expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.
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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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Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous.
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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.
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Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.
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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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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.
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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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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.
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Ronald Reagan had a vision of America. Barack Obama has a vision of Barack Obama.
THOMAS SOWELL