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 SOWELLIf you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today.
More Thomas Sowell Quotes
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The really painful surprise is that so many people based their hopes on his words, rather than on the record of his deeds.
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Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?
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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.
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Age gives you an excuse for not being very good at things that you were not very good at when you were young.
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Liberals seem to assume that, if you don’t believe in their particular political solutions, then you don’t really care about the people that they claim to want to help.
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People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.
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It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
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It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today.
THOMAS SOWELL -
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.
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A society in which such decisions can only be made by males has thrown away half of its knowledge, talents, and insights.
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Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.
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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.
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The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.
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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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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.
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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.
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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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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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Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.
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The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.
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Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous.
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Some people imagine that they are well informed because they have memorized a whole galaxy of trendy dogmas and fashionable attitudes.
THOMAS SOWELL