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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.

Thomas Sowell

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
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
If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.
THOMAS SOWELL

Absence Acceptance Civil Defend Force Prepare
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
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
Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on “income distribution,” the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.
THOMAS SOWELL

Distribution Earn Economics Income Literature Money
The purpose of education is to give the student the intellectual tools to analyze, whether verbally or numerically, and to reach conclusions based on logic and evidence.
THOMAS SOWELL

Education Evidence Intellectual Logic Student
Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.
THOMAS SOWELL

Competition Consumer Effect Government Job Protect
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Alternative Choas Government Imagination People Planning
It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.
THOMAS SOWELL

DAngry Decision Imagination People Price Stupidity
Justice at all costs’ is not justice.
THOMAS SOWELL

Cost Deep Injustice Justice One Liner
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
Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.
THOMAS SOWELL

Case God Identity Mistake Remember Trouble
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
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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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