Thomas Sowell Quotes
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Being willing to donate the taxpayers' money is not the same as being willing to put your own money where your mouth is.
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Progress in general seems to hold little interest for people who call themselves 'progressives.' What arouses them are denunciations of social failures and accusations of wrong-doing.
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Any policy is a success by sufficiently low standards and a failure by sufficiently high standards.
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Neither your life nor my life, nor the future of this country, will be affected in the slightest by whether Linda Tripp is naughty or nice. But if any president is able to commit crimes with impunity by using the vast powers and perquisites of his office to cover up, then we will have a danger of corruption and abuse of power that can only grow with the passing years and generations.
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After the risky mortgage-lending practices fostered by government intervention led to massive defaults and foreclosures that caused financial institutions to collapse or be bailed out, Congressman Frank changed his tune completely.
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Those who want to "spread the wealth" almost invariably seek to concentrate the power. It happens too often, and in too many different countries around the world, to be a coincidence. Which is more dangerous, inequalities of wealth or concentrations of power?
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Someone recently pointed out how much Barack Obama's style and strategies resemble those of Latin American charismatic despots - the takeover of industries by demagogues who never ran a business, the rousing rhetoric of resentment addressed to the masses and the personal cult of the leader promoted by the media. But do we want to become the world's largest banana republic?
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Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous. Among people of every race, color, and creed, all around the world, socialism has led to hunger in countries that used to have surplus food to export.... Nevertheless, for many of those who deal primarily in ideas, socialism remains an attractive idea -- in fact, seductive. Its every failure is explained away as due to the inadequacies of particular leaders.
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How much more of an injustice is it that people who work get more money than people who don't work?
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Not only is patriotism disdained, the very basis for pride in one's country and culture is systematically undermined in our educational institutions at all levels. The achievements of western civilization are buried in histories that portray every human sin found here as if they were peculiarities of the west.
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Few of the great tragedies of history were created by the village idiot, and many by the village genius.
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No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems - of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.
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You cannot subsidize irresponsibility and expect people to become more responsible.
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In liberal logic, if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians, to spend in ways that will increase their chances of getting reelected.
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We know - or should know - what lies at the end of the road of racial polarization. A 'race card' is not something to play, because race is a very dangerous political plaything.
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Those who cry out that the government should 'do something' never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.
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Although I am ready to defend what I have said, many people expect me to defend what others have attributed to me.
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It is amazing how many people think they are doing blacks a favor by exempting them from standards that others are expected to meet.
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We cannot allow the defense of American lives to be held hostage by the United Nations -- which has already given Saddam Hussein a final warning, and now wants to give him another final warning. And, if he doesn't heed that, they will threaten him with yet another warning.
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One undeniable accomplishment of Bill Clinton's presidency was that it kept Jimmy Carter from being the worst U.S. president in history.
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It is bad enough that so many people believe things without any evidence. What is worse is that some people have no conception of evidence and regard facts as just someone else's opinion.
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All justice is inherently social. Can someone on a desert island be either just or unjust?
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American society in recent years has been imitating behavior patterns that have produced negative - and sometimes catastrophic - consequences in many other countries around the world.
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Nothing could be more jolting and discordant with the vision of today's intellectuals than the fact that it was businessmen, devout religious leaders and Western imperialists who together destroyed slavery around the world. And if it doesn't fit their vision, it is the same to them as if it never happened.