Thomas Sowell Quotes
-
How you treat the helpless is the real test of morality. Lots of people are flunking that test big time.
-
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.
-
How are children supposed to learn to act like adults, when so much of what they see on television shows adults acting like children?
-
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.
-
It doesnt matter what you do if you dont do what matters. If you do what matters it doesnt matter what you do.
-
So many idealistic political movements for a better world have ended in mass-murdering dictatorships. Giving leaders enough power to create 'social justice' is giving them enough power to destroy all justice, all freedom, and all human dignity.
-
Government's power to bully people who have broken no law is dangerous to all of us.
-
Each day, as I take various pills, I realize that without those pills I might not be alive -- and, if I were, life would not be worth living. Yet those who produce these medications are under constant attack from people who produce nothing.
-
Just as members of American teachers unions often send their own children to private schools, so unionized workers at government-run hospitals in Britain have insurance that allows them to go to private hospitals. In both cases, those on the inside realize how bad these institutions are, regardless of what they say to those on the outside.
-
If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.
-
In politics, the truth is strictly optional and that also seems to be true in parts of the media.
-
Someone once said that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. That may have been true when he said it, but today taxes are mostly the price we pay so that politicians can play Santa Claus and get reelected.
-
History is the memory of a nation
-
The economic disasters of socialism and communism come from assuming a blanket superiority of those who want to run a whole economy.
-
Even if her children or grandchildren are willing to spend their own money to keep grandma alive, when bureaucrats control the necessary technology or medication they may decide that it is not for sale.
-
The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.
-
Nobody is equal to anybody. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days.
-
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.
-
Right after liberal Democrats, the most dangerous politicians are country club Republicans.
-
The only thing better than "hands-on" experience is hands-off experience - enough experience to understand that some things will turn out better if left alone.
-
I hate to make predictions, but I think the economy is going to be permanently changed for the worse. I think our foreign policy is going to lead to changes that will be definitely for the worse, particularly if we drift into a nuclear Iran, which I gather that's what the administration is doing.
-
Knowledge can be enormously costly, and is often scattered in widely uneven fragments, too small to be individually usable in decision making. The communication and coordination of these scattered fragments of knowledge is one of the basic problems- perhaps the basic problem- of any society.
-
Too much of what is called 'education' is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.
-
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