Thomas Sowell Quotes

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth--anonymously and posthumously.

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area - crime, education, housing, race relations - the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.

Politeness and consideration for others is like investing pennies and getting dollars back.

With various people complaining about "price gouging'ť... economist Walter Williams has coined a new term: "Tax gouging." But government is never accused of either "greed" or "gouging" '” not even when they bulldoze people`s homes in order to turn the land over to businesses that will pay more taxes.

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?

Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face

If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

One of the consequences of such notions as "entitlements" is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.

If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism

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.

It is amazing how many of those who consider themselves "thinking people" respond automatically to words the way Pavlov`s dog was conditioned to respond to certain sounds.

The assumption that spending more of the taxpayer`s money will make things better has survived all kinds of evidence that it has made things worse. The black family- which survived slavery, discrimination, poverty, wars and depressions- began to come apart as the federal government moved in with its well-financed programs to "help."

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it

Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on "income distribution," the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.

The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.

What is more frightening than any particular policy or ideology is the widespread habit of disregarding facts.

Any politician who starts shouting election-year demagoguery about the rich and the poor should be asked, "What about the other 90 percent of the people?"

You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing.

Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty.

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.

Liberals seem to assume that, if you don`t believe in their particular political solutions, then you don`t really care about the people that they claim to want to help

The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers.

Leaving prices out of the picture is probably the source of more fallacies in economics than any other single misconception.

Most people who read "The Communist Manifesto" probably have no idea that it was written by a couple of young men who had never worked a day in their lives, and who nevertheless spoke boldly in the name of "the workers".