Thomas Sowell Quotes
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Senator John McCain could never convince me to vote for him. Only Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can cause me to vote for McCain.
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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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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.
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One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again.
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You cannot subsidize irresponsibility and expect people to become more responsible.
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If we become a people who are willing to give up our money and our freedom in exchange for rhetoric and promises, then nothing can save us.
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The most politically painless way to hand out goodies, without taking responsibility for their costs, is to pass a law saying that somebody else must provide those goodies at their expense, while the politicians take credit for generosity and compassion.
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The grand delusion of contemporary liberals is that they have both the right and the ability to move their fellow creatures around like blocks of wood - and that the end results will be no different than if people had voluntarily chosen the same action
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Government restrictions are attractive to people who want to impose their pet notions without having to count the costs.
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Organizational progress parallels that in science and technology, permitting ultimate simplicity through intermediate complexity.
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Clearly, only very unequal intellectual and moral standing could justify having equality imposed, whether the people want it or not, as Dworkin suggests, and only very unequal power would make it possible.
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All that makes earlier times seem simpler is our ignorance of their complexities.
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What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?
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The vision of the anointed is one in which ills as poverty, irresponsible sex, and crime derive primarily from 'society,' rather than from individual choices and behavior. To believe in personal responsibility would be to destroy the whole special role of the anointed, whose vision casts them in the role of rescuers of people treated unfairly by 'society'.
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Where intellectuals have played a role in history, it has not been so much by whispering words of advice into the ears of political overlords as by contributing to the vast and powerful currents of conceptions and misconceptions that sweep human action along.
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Having spent years ruining the housing markets with their interference, leading to a housing meltdown that has taken the whole economy down with it, politicians have now moved on into micro-managing automobile companies and medical care. They are not going to stop unless they get stopped. And that is not going to happen until the voters recognize the fact that political rhetoric is no substitute for competence.
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Women can say anything they want to men, or blacks to whites, with impunity. But strong words in the other direction can bring down on students the wrath of the campus thought police - as well as punishments that can extend to suspension or expulsion.
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Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.
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I'm so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.
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In this era of political correctness, some people seem unaware that being squeamish about words can mean being blind to realities.
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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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Few of the great tragedies of history were created by the village idiot, and many by the village genius.
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Economics is concerned with what emerges, not what anyone intended.
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The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.