Thomas Sowell Quotes
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The same set of statistics can produce opposite conclusions at different levels of aggregation.
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There is no question that liberals do an impressive job of expressing concern for blacks. But do the intentions expressed in their words match the actual consequences of their deeds?
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Sports are the reason I am out of shape. I watch them all on TV.
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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.
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The biggest difference between people is between those who are trying to do the right thing - whether or not they succeed - and those for whom the only question is how much they can get away with.
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Credentialed ignorance is still ignorance.
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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.
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Anyone who does not understand the utter cynicism of politics does not understand politics.
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Social Engineering - The art of replacing what works with what sounds good.
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A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.
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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.
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The Obama administration seems to be following what might be called 'the Detroit pattern increasing taxes, harassing businesses, and pandering to unions. In the short run, it got mayors re-elected. In the long-run, it reduced Detroit from a thriving city to an economic disaster area, whose population was cut in half, as its most productive citizens fled.
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When your response to everything that is wrong with the world is to say, 'there ought to be a law,' you are saying that you hold freedom very cheap.
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To say the Constitution is living is to say that it's dead.
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Government's power to bully people who have broken no law is dangerous to all of us.
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Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare.
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All statements are true, if you are free to redefine their terms.
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Much of the self-righteous nonsense that abounds on so many subjects cannot stand up to three questions: (1) Compared to what? (2) At what cost? and (3) What are the hard facts?.
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The poor are the very lifeblood of the left, attracting activists, supporting among the intelligentsia, and - perhaps most important - allowing the left to indulge in self-congratulation as people who 'care.' But, if they really cared, they would want to know what the facts are and what the actual consequences of their various nostrums are.
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The way the welfare programs are organized, poor people are only paid to do things that are counter-productive - such as breaking up their families, such as not earning above a certain level of income.
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Civilization is an enormous device for economizing knowledge,.
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It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.