Thomas SowellLove is a four-letter word, but you don't hear in nearly as often as you hear some other four-letter words. It may be a sign of our times that everyone talks openly about sex, but… ▶371LoveTime
Thomas SowellSocial values in general are incrementally variable: neither safety, diversity, rational articulation, nor morality is categorically a good thing to have more of, without limits. … ▶361Reading
Thomas SowellCredentialed ignorance is still ignorance.372Philosophy
Thomas SowellAny policy is a success by sufficiently low standards and a failure by sufficiently high standards. ✨ Thomas Sowell (1995). The Vision of the Anointed: Self-congratulation a… ▶375Reading
Thomas SowellNothing could be more jolting and discordant with the vision of today's intellectuals than the fact that it was businessmen, devout religious leaders and Western imperialists who … ▶353Truth
Thomas SowellAnother way of verbally masking elite preemption of other people's decisions is to use the word 'ask'-as in 'We are just asking everyone to pay their fair share.' But of course go… ▶364HumanityPolitics
Thomas SowellIf you have a right to respect, that means other people don't have a right to their own opinions. ✨ Thomas Sowell (2006). Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays, Ho… ▶353Humanity
Thomas SowellThe black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals' expansion of the welfare state.353Politics
Thomas SowellMuch of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good. ✨ Thomas Sowell (1993). Is … ▶364TimeTruth
Thomas SowellWeighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions - and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business. Only in government is any ben… ▶354HumanityPoliticsReflection
Thomas SowellWhat is politically defined as economic planning is the forcible superseding of other people's plans by Government officials. ✨ Thomas Sowell (1996). Knowledge And Decisions… ▶376HumanityPoliticsReading
Thomas SowellIt is amazing how many people think they are doing blacks a favor by exempting them from standards that others are expected to meet.321HumanityThought
Thomas SowellTariffs that save jobs in the steel industry mean higher steel prices, which in turn means fewer sales of American steel products around the world and losses of far more jobs than… ▶354Humor
Thomas SowellDo countries with strong gun control laws have lower murder rates? Only if you cherry-pick the data.365Politics
Thomas SowellIn politics, the truth is strictly optional and that also seems to be true in parts of the media.354PoliticsTruth
Thomas SowellNo matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: 'But what would you replace it with?' When you put out a fire, what do you repl… ▶311Truth
Thomas SowellThere is no talent so ardently supported, nor generously rewarded, as the ability to convince parasites they are victims.366Death
Thomas SowellAs an economist, whenever I hear the word shortage I wait for the other shoe to drop. That other shoe is usually price control.322Death
Thomas SowellThe Congressional Budget Office has been embarrassed repeatedly by making projections based on the assumption that tax revenues and tax rates move in the same direction. ✨ F… ▶344Politics
Thomas SowellI 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 wit… ▶333Truth
Thomas SowellIn medicine, it has long been recognized that even a quack remedy that is harmless in itself can be fatal when it substitutes for an effective medication or treatment. The time is… ▶366PoliticsTime
Thomas SowellThere is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs. ✨ Thomas… ▶323HumanityReading
Thomas SowellExperience trumps brilliance.323Life
Thomas SowellWhenever people talk glibly of a need to achieve educational excellence, I think of what an improvement it would be if our public schools could just achieve mediocrity.345HumanityThought
Thomas SowellWhy the transfer of decisions from those with personal experience and a stake in the outcome to those with neither can be expected to lead to better decisions is a question seldom… ▶301Life
Thomas SowellAll justice is inherently social. Can someone on a desert island be either just or unjust? ✨ Thomas Sowell (2001). The Quest for Cosmic Justice, p.3, Simon and Schuster378Thought
Thomas SowellIn short, killing the goose that lays the golden egg is a viable political strategy, so long as the goose does not die before the next election and no one traces the politicians’ … ▶301DeathPolitics
Thomas SowellThe 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 w… ▶334Humanity
Thomas SowellThe Constitution cannot protect us unless we protect the Constitution. ✨ Political Judges. jewishworldreview.com. November 9, 2010.378Politics
Thomas SowellClearly, only very unequal intellectual and moral standing could justify having equality imposed, whether the people want it or not, as Dworkin suggests, and only very unequal pow… ▶334HumanityPoliticsReading
