Skip to content

Government Quotes by Thomas Sowell

80 Government quotes by Thomas Sowell

All Government quotes Thomas Sowell’s page

When people ask the government to forbid something, the request can turn into a quick ban. Critics point out that public projects often cost more than private ones, and that power can be abused by ideologues. The quote highlights how easy it is to blame the state for everything.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Those government officials who want more power are not going to stop unless they get stopped.

Image

Government restrictions are attractive to people who want to impose their pet notions without having to count the costs.

Image

Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.

Image

It is amazing how many people seem to think that the government exists to turn their prejudices into law.

Image

There are only two economists in Congress and hundreds of lawyers. Does that explain why the government is in such a mess?

Image

Government bailouts are like potato chips: You can't stop with just one.

Image

The most basic function of government is to provide a framework of law and order, within which the people are free to…

Image

The government is neither a monolith nor simply the public interest personified.

Image

Government cannot solve all our problems, even in normal times, much less during a catastrophe of nature that reminds man how little…

Image

'Fair' is one of the most dangerous concepts in politics. Since no two people are likely to agree on what is 'fair,'…

Image

Much of the world today, including the United States, is still living in the social, cultural, and political aftermath of Britain's cultural…

Image

People who know nothing about advertising, nothing about pharmaceuticals, and nothing about economics have been loudly proclaiming that the drug companies spend…

Image

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the…

Image

After the risky mortgage-lending practices fostered by government intervention led to massive defaults and foreclosures that caused financial institutions to collapse or…

Image

Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would…

Image

Wise men wrote the Constitution, but clever judges have been destroying it, bit by bit, turning it into an instrument of arbitrary…

Image

One of the problems with trying to help underdogs, especially with government programs, is that they and everyone else start to think…

Image

Everyone should be concerned about Internet anarchy in which anybody can pretend to be anybody else, unless something is done to stop…

Image

Implicit in the activist conception of government is the assumption that you can take the good things in a complex system for…

Image

Virtually everything that the government does costs more than when the same thing is done in private industry - whether it is…

Image

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Think things, not words." In words, many see a need for "social justice" to override "the dictates of…

Image

However little president Obama knows or cares about economics, he knows a lot about politics - and especially political rhetoric. 'High-speed rail'…

Image

The government has brought on the housing problem, partly by these very low interest rates, which encouraged many people to go way…

Image

People who believe in evolution in biology often believe in creationism in government. In other words, they believe that the universe and…

Image

While President Barack Obama has, in one sense, tipped his hand by saying that he wants judges with "empathy" for certain groups,…

Image

Most Americans living below the official poverty line own a car or truck - and government entitlement programs seldom provide cars and…

Image

“A mere enumeration of government activity is evidence -- often the sole evidence offered -- of "inadequate" nongovernment institutions, whose "inability" to…

Image

What is politically defined as economic planning is the forcible superseding of other people's plans by Government officials.

Image

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

Image

High tax rates that people don't actually pay do not bring the government as much revenue as lower tax rates that they…

Image

Government's power to bully people who have broken no law is dangerous to all of us.

Image

Government central planning means over-riding other people's plans.

Image

“stability of government and dependability of laws which attracted foreigners.”

Image

Hyperinflation can take virtually your entire life's savings, without the government having to bother raising the official tax rate at all.

Image

[A]ffirmative action in the United States has made blacks. . .who have largely lifted themselves out of poverty, look like people who…

Image

Both history and contemporary data show that countries prosper more when there are stable and dependable rules, under which people can make…

Image

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a…

Image

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can…

Image

Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions - and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want…

Image

“The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a…

Image

Other authors on Government

More by Thomas Sowell

The vision of the left, full of envy and resentment, takes its worst toll on those at the bottom - whether black or white…

There is no bigger waste of time than doing 90% of what is necessary.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten…

“In 1962, Democratic President John F. Kennedy, like both Democratic and Republican Presidents and Secretaries of the Treasury in earlier years, pointed out that “it…

Ideological bigotry has become the norm on even our most prestigious campuses, where students can go for years without reading or hearing anything that…

Bailing out people who made ill-advised mortgages makes no more sense that bailing out people who lost their life savings in Las Vegas casinos.

“One third of all Scots in the mid-nineteenth century moved from one county to another”

The difference is that we have the hardest and most painful evidence that there was a Holocaust. But, for the global warming scenario that…

“Just as price fluctuations allocate scarce resources which have alternative uses, price controls which limit those fluctuations reduce the incentives for individuals to limit…

The greatest danger to the liberal vision are facts about the consequences of liberalism itself and the laws, policies, and ways of life that…

Having spent years ruining the housing markets with their interference, leading to a housing meltdown that has taken the whole economy down with it,…

Do all children have some inherent right to live in America if they have done nothing wrong? If not, then why should the children…

What 'eminent domain' laws mean in practice is that politicians have a right to seize your property and turn it over to someone else,…

“those parts of the British Isles without the advantage of coal deposits or ports, industrialization was as handicapped as in other countries.”

The whole idea of equal justice under law is completely incompatible with the idea of judges deciding cases according to "empathy".