Thomas Sowell Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Thomas Sowell on Wise Famous Quotes.
All too often, we do smart things only after exhausting every conceivable dumb thing we could have done.
I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.
Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.
Although I am ready to defend what I have said, many people expect me to defend what others have attributed to me.
Have you gone crazy, Lefty?" "No. On the contrary, I have become educated." "Sometimes that's worse, these days.
The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending.
Intellectuals may like to think of themselves as people who "speak truth to power" but too often they are people who speak lies to gain power.
Stupid people can cause problems, but it usually takes brilliant people to create a real catastrophe.
Asking liberals where wages and prices come from is like asking six-year-olds where babies come from.
As for gun control advocates, I have no hope whatever that any facts whatever will make the slightest dent in their thinking - or lack of thinking.
How you treat the helpless is the real test of morality. Lots of people are flunking that test big time.
Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on "income distribution," the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.
You have to have a sense of humor if you follow politics. Otherwise, the sheer fraudulence of it all will get you down.
You may have the right to live anyway you like, but you don't have a right to have other people like it. Respect it or pay for it.
It is so easy to be wrong-and to persist in being wrong-when the costs of being wrong are paid by others.
Policies are judged by their consequences but crusades are judged by how good they make the crusaders feel.
In this era of political correctness, some people seem unaware that being squeamish about words can mean being blind to realities.
What does 'economic justice' mean, except that you want something that someone else produced, without having to produce anything yourself in return?
One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring.
Our economic problems worry me much less than our political solutions, which have a far worse track record.
It doesnt matter what you do if you dont do what matters. If you do what matters it doesnt matter what you do.
Wal-Mart has done more for poor people then any ten liberals, at least nine of whom are almost guaranteed to hate Wal-Mart.
The word 'racism' is like ketchup. It can be put on practically anything - and demanding evidence makes you a 'racist.'
Age gives you an excuse for not being very good at things that you were not very good at when you were young.
Some of the people on death row today might not be there if the courts had not been so lenient on them when they were first offenders.
One of the most important skills for political success is the ability to make confident assertions of absurdities or lies.
Lunches don't get free just because you don't see the prices on the menu. And economists don't get popular by reminding people of that.
The massive ethnic communities that make up the mosaic of American society cannot be adequately described as "minorities." There is no "majority." The
Government restrictions are attractive to people who want to impose their pet notions without having to count the costs.
The idea that money is corrupting innocent politicians would be laughable if it did not lead to such dangerous legislation ...
There are only two economists in Congress and hundreds of lawyers. Does that explain why the government is in such a mess?
High tax rates that people don't actually pay do not bring the government as much revenue as lower tax rates that they do pay.
Global warming' is just the latest in a long line of hysterical crusades to which we seem to be increasingly susceptible.
There is nothing that politicians like better than handing out benefits to be paid for by someone else.
Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.
The reason so many problems do not get solved in Washington is that solving those problems is not the No. 1 priority: Re-election is.
The law of diminishing returns means that even the most beneficial prinicple will become harmful if carried far enough.
If we spend our time with regrets over yesterday, and worries over what might happen tomorrow, we have no today in which to live.
To say that being non-judgmental is better than being judgmental is itself a judgment, and therefore a violation of principle.
A passionate commitment to social justice is no substitute for knowing what the hell you're talking about.
When you start off by telling those who disagree with you that they are not merely in error but in sin, how much of a dialogue do you expect?
Our schools and colleges are turning out people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.
All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.
Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side
Few of the great tragedies of history were created by the village idiot, and many by the village genius.
If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.
Some people say that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. But the runaway taxes of our time are the price we pay for being gullible.
The economic disasters of socialism and communism come from assuming a blanket superiority of those who want to run a whole economy.
Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them.
You may scoff at the Tooth Fairy if you like. But the Tooth Fairy's approach has gotten more politicians elected than any economist's analysis.
You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.
There is no talent so ardently supported, nor generously rewarded, as the ability to convince parasites they are victims.