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Portrait of Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell

(1930) University Teacher

823 quotes in 2748 categories

Sowell critiques how envy and resentment from the left can hurt the poorest, no matter their race. He warns that spending most of our effort on unnecessary tasks wastes precious time. He also notes that ideological bigotry now dominates many campuses, limiting exposure to challenging ideas.

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Thomas Sowell is an university teacher, best known for Basic economics.

Quick Facts About Thomas Sowell

Born: June 30, 1930
Profession: University Teacher
Notable works: Basic economics

About Thomas Sowell

He has written many books and articles and is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. As a black scholar, he is a prominent voice in the American conservative movement.

Quotes by Thomas Sowell

Credentialed ignorance is still ignorance.

Ignorance

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Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare.

Funny

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Experience trumps brilliance.

Brilliance

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Intellect is not wisdom.

Intellect

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Reality is not optional.

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The real minimum wage is zero.

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Envy plus rhetoric equals "social justice.".

Envy

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Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.

Reality

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All that makes earlier times seem simpler is our ignorance of their complexities.

Complexity

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

Competition

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

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A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.

Antithesis

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“Ronald Reagan had a vision of America. Barack Obama has a vision of Barack Obama.”

Dreams

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Some full professors could more accurately be described as empty professors.

Education

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“In short, rent control reduces the rate of housing turnover.”

Housing

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Nobody is equal to anybody. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days.

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One of the most important skills for political success is the ability to make confident assertions of absurdities or lies.

Ability

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How you treat the helpless is the real test of morality. Lots of people are flunking that test big time.

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“The media are less a window on reality, than a stage on which officials and journalists perform self-scripted, self-serving fictions.”

Deception

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American society in recent years has been imitating behavior patterns that have produced negative - and sometimes catastrophic - consequences in many…

American society

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Any policy is a success by sufficiently low standards and a failure by sufficiently high standards.

Failure

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You need to be empathetic in your own personal life and we help our neighbors and our friends out who are struggling…

Bad decision

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The New York times' long-standing motto, 'All the News That's Fit to Print,' should be changed to reflect today's reality: 'Manufacturing News…

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In a democracy, we have always had to worry about the ignorance of the uneducated. Today we have to worry about the…

College

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Not since the days of slavery have there been so many people who feel entitled to what other people have produced as…

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Those who want to "spread the wealth" almost invariably seek to concentrate the power. It happens too often, and in too many…

Around the world

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Considering how often throughout history even intelligent people have been proved to be wrong, it is amazing that there are still people…

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Perhaps the most widespread misunderstanding of economics is that it applies solely to financial transactions. Frequently this leads to statements that "there…

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The vision of the anointed is one in which ills as poverty, irresponsible sex, and crime derive primarily from 'society,' rather than…

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In the political language of today, people who want to keep what they have earned are said to be greedy, while those…

Compassion

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Any judicial nominee who has said that the Constitution means what it says, not what judges would like it to mean, is…

Constitution

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The demands of unbounded individualism need to be weighed in the light of inherent social constraints which can only change their form…

Civilization

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The growing complexity of science, technology, and organization does not imply either a growing knowledge or a growing need for knowledge in…

Complexes

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To those who feel that their values are THE values, the less controlled systems necessarily present a spectacle of "chaos," simply because…

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One of the most basic and pervasive social processes is the sorting and labeling of things, activities, and people... Sorting and labeling…

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

Anarchy

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When I was teaching at an institution that bent over backward for foreign students, I was asked in class one day: "What…

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

Activist

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“The staunchest conservatives advocate a range of changes which differ in specifics, rather than in number or magnitude, from the changes advocated…

Change

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“While the Obama administration in Washington is not the root cause of the ominous dangers that face this country, at home and…

Danger

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Thomas Sowell by topic

People (193) Politics (151) Government (80) Political (63) Politician (52) Economics (40) Education (39) Facts (38) Time (34) Social (34) Country (33) World (32) History (31) Problem (30) Taxes (29)