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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

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
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
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
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.
THOMAS SOWELL

Appreciate DAngry Failure Honor People Trust
What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.
THOMAS SOWELL

Freedom Government Justice Law Liberty People
It is scary how easily so many people can be brainwashed by sheer repetition of a word.
THOMAS SOWELL

Brain Human Nature People Repetition Scary
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
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
THOMAS SOWELL

Consider Ignorance Knowledge Realize
Heedless of the past, we are flying blind into the future.
THOMAS SOWELL

Blind Fly Future Past
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

Alternative Choose Failure Hate People Success
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
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 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
The government is indeed an institution, but “the market” is nothing more than an option for each individual to chose among numerous existing institutions, or to fashion new arrangements suited to his own situation and taste.
THOMAS SOWELL

Arrangement Economics Government Institution Market Situation
If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly.
THOMAS SOWELL

Choose Decide Information Inspirational People Public
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
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
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
No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.
THOMAS SOWELL

Compassion Law People Tax
Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism.
THOMAS SOWELL

Acceptance Education Ideas Intelligence People Virtue
Don’t you get tired of seeing so many “non-conformists” with the same non-conformist look?
THOMAS SOWELL

Comformist Tired
Economics is more than just a way to see patterns or to unravel puzzling anomalies.
THOMAS SOWELL

Economics Pattern Puzzle
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
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
There are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and posthumously.
THOMAS SOWELL

Honesty Sarcastic Truth
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 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

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.

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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.

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