“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.”

A society that puts equality – in the sense of equality of outcome – ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.

Heedless of the past, we are flying blind into the future.

No one chooses which culture to be born into or can be blamed for how that culture evolved in past centuries.

Justice at all costs’ is not justice.

It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.

Whenever someone refers to me as someone “who happens to be black,” I wonder if they realize that both my parents are black. If I had turned out to be Scandinavian or Chinese, people would have wondered what was going on.

As history has also shown, especially in the twentieth century, one of the first things an ideologue will do after achieving absolute power is kill.

Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous.

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.

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.

Intellect is not wisdom.

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.

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.

The fact that the market is not doing what we wish it would do is no reason to automatically assume that the government would do better.

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.

Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options.

A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.

For me the history of the place of black people in this country is so varied, complex and beautiful. And impactful.

For me the history of the place of black people in this country is so varied, complex and beautiful. And impactful.

Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain’s simulation of the world becomes so complex that it must include a model of itself.

Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to keep things simple.

Everywhere we look, complex magic of nature blazes before our eyes.

Simple can be harder than complex. You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.

It’s a strange, eerie sensation to fly a lunar landing trajectory not difficult, but somewhat complex and unforgiving.