Thomas Sowell Quotes
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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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A lot of what is called 'public service' consists of making hoops for other people to jump through. It is a great career for those who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.
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...Politics is not about facts. It is about what politicians can get people to believe.
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In politics, the truth is strictly optional and that also seems to be true in parts of the media.
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Students are often in no position to judge 'relevance' until long after the fact.
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Brainy folks were also present in Lyndon Johnson's administration, especially in the Pentagon, where Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's brilliant 'whiz kids' tried to micro-manage the Vietnam war, with disastrous results.
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Too much of what is called 'education' is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.
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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.
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If you truly believe in the brotherhood of man, then you must believe that blacks are just as capable of being racists as whites are.
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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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Our economic problems worry me much less than our political solutions, which have a far worse track record.
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The law of diminishing returns means that even the most beneficial prinicple will become harmful if carried far enough.
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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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Sometimes it seems as if I have spent the first half of my life refusing to let white people define me and the second half refusing to let black people define me.
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Compassion is the use of public funds to buy votes
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There are only two economists in Congress and hundreds of lawyers. Does that explain why the government is in such a mess?
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Nobody would put as little thought and effort into buying an automobile as they put into deciding who to elect as President of the United States.
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It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to turn their prejudices into law.
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All statements are true, if you are free to redefine their terms.
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Benedict Arnold was a war hero, wounded in battle--before he turned against his country. Hitler was likewise a decorated and wounded veteran of the First World War. Being a war hero is not a lifetime...exemption...from responsibility for what you do thereafter.
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The political left has been weak on protecting society from criminals for more than two centuries.
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Civilization is an enormous device for economizing knowledge,.
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A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.
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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.