Thomas Sowell quotes - page 7

Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social theorist, and writer, known for his work on race, economics, and political philosophy. His research and books often challenge conventional wisdom and address controversial social issues. He has significantly influenced debates on education, economics, and public policy. Here are 196 of his quotes:

I suspect that even most conservatives would prefer to live in the kind of world conjured up in the liberals' imagination rather than in the kind of world we are in fact stuck with.

Thomas Sowell

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

Thomas Sowell

The word 'racism' is like ketchup. It can be put on practically anything - and demanding evidence makes you a 'racist.'

Thomas Sowell

It is a way to take people's wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes. Inflation is the most universal tax of all.

Thomas Sowell

Do countries with strong gun control laws have lower murder rates? Only if you cherry-pick the data.

Thomas Sowell

The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his 'basic rights.'

Thomas Sowell

Although the big word on the left is 'compassion,' the big agenda on the left is dependency.

Thomas Sowell

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

Thomas Sowell

Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination.

Thomas Sowell

The more people who are dependent on government handouts, the more votes the left can depend on for an ever-expanding welfare state.

Thomas Sowell

Without a moral framework, there is nothing left but immediate self-indulgence by some and the path of least resistance by others. Neither can sustain a free society.

Thomas Sowell

Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more.

Thomas Sowell

As for gun control advocates, I have no hope whatever that any facts whatever will make the slightest dent in their thinking - or lack of thinking.

Thomas Sowell

Envy plus rhetoric equals 'social justice'.

Thomas Sowell

Just as any moron can destroy a priceless Ming vase, so the shallow and ill-educated people who run our schools can undermine and destroy from within a great civilization that took centuries of dedicated effort to create and maintain.

Thomas Sowell

Letters from teachers continue to confirm the incompetence which they deny. A teacher in Montana says that my criticisms of teachers are "nieve." No, that wasn't a typographical error. He spelled it that way twice.

Thomas Sowell

If I could offer one piece of advice to young people thinking about their future, it would be this: Don't preconceive. Find out what the opportunities are.

Thomas Sowell

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. Know-it-alls in the school system do not lose one dime or one hour's sleep if their bright ideas turn out to be all wrong, or even disastrous, for the child.

Thomas Sowell

As far as party primaries are concerned, both Republican and Democratic Party primaries are dominated by the most zealous voters, whose views may not reflect the views of most members of their own respective parties, much less the views of those who are going to vote in the November general election. In recent times, each election year has seen each party's nominee selected - or at least subject to veto - by its most extreme wing and then forced to try to move back to the center before the general election. This can only undermine the public's confidence in the integrity of the candidates of both parties.

Thomas Sowell

To find anything comparable to crowds' euphoric reactions to Obama, you would have to go back to old newsreels of German crowds in the 1930s, with their adulation of their fuehrer, Adolf Hitler. With hindsight, we can look back on those people with pity, knowing now how many of them would be led to their deaths by the man they idolized.

Thomas Sowell

In its pursuit of justice for a segment of society, in disregard of the consequences for society as a whole, what is called 'social justice' might more accurately be called anti-social justice, since what consistently gets ignored or dismissed are precisely the costs to society. Such a conception of justice seeks to correct, not only biased or discriminatory acts by individuals or by social institutions, but unmerited disadvantages in general, from whatever source they may arise.

Thomas Sowell

The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves. You can talk about 'social justice' all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get re-elected. That is not social justice or any other kind of justice.

Thomas Sowell