Thomas Sowell

The gun-control crusade today is like the Prohibition crusade 100 years ago. It is a shared zealotry that binds the self-righteous know-it-alls…

— Thomas Sowell

Even when black youth gangs target white strangers on the streets and spew out racial hatred as they batter them and rob…

— Thomas Sowell

Republicans won big, running as Republicans, in 2004. But once they took control of Congress, they started acting like Democrats and lost…

— Thomas Sowell

Securities based on risky mortgages are what toppled financial institutions but it was the government that made the mortgages risky in the…

— Thomas Sowell

Just as members of American teachers unions often send their own children to private schools, so unionized workers at government-run hospitals in…

— Thomas Sowell

“Nowhere in the world do you find this evenness that people use as a norm. And I find it fascinating that they…

— Thomas Sowell

The government is indeed an institution, but "the market" is nothing more than an option for each individual to chose among numerous…

— Thomas Sowell

We're not a socialist country, because the socialists believe in government ownership in the means of production, but the fascists believe that…

— Thomas Sowell

“Britain's earlier development of strong and widespread labor unions, which were able to restrict the application of new technology, both directly and…

— Thomas Sowell

The fatal attraction of government is that it allows busybodies to impose decisions on others without paying any price themselves. That enables…

— Thomas Sowell

Even if her children or grandchildren are willing to spend their own money to keep grandma alive, when bureaucrats control the necessary…

— Thomas Sowell

As taxpayers, we have quietly accepted the fact that our taxes will be spent to pay big bucks for all sorts of…

— Thomas Sowell

If you have ever seen a four-year-old trying to lord it over a two-year-old, then you know what the basic problem of…

— Thomas Sowell

In various countries and times, leaders of groups that lagged behind, economically and educationally, have taught their followers to blame all their…

— Thomas Sowell

Even squirrels know enough to store nuts, so that they will have something to eat when food gets scarce. But the welfare…

— Thomas Sowell

If you can't beat them or join them, then do something weird. No matter how much the passengers eat, the weight of…

— Thomas Sowell

One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They…

— Thomas Sowell

The government does not have some magic wand that can 'bring down the cost of health care.' It can buy a smaller…

— Thomas Sowell

So long as public schools are treated as places that exist to provide guaranteed jobs to members of the teachers' unions, do…

— Thomas Sowell

“The results show how unreliable peer consensus can be, even when it is a peer consensus of highly intellectual people, if those…

— Thomas Sowell

While rationalism at the individual level is a plea for more personal autonomy from cultural norms, at the social level it is…

— Thomas Sowell

One of the reasons for conspiracy theories is an assumption that people in high places always know what they are doing. When…

— Thomas Sowell

“The futility of attempting to upgrade the teaching profession by paying higher salaries is obvious, so long as legal barriers keep out…

— Thomas Sowell

More than half of all people filing income tax forms use someone else to prepare the forms for them. Then they have…

— Thomas Sowell

At least half of the popular fallacies about economics come from assuming that economic activity is a zero-sum game, in which what…

— Thomas Sowell

As long as human beings are imperfect, there will always be arguments for extending the power of government to deal with these…

— Thomas Sowell

The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a…

— Thomas Sowell

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

— Thomas Sowell

We cannot allow the defense of American lives to be held hostage by the United Nations -- which has already given Saddam…

— Thomas Sowell

What the political left, even in democratic countries, share is the notion that knowledgeable and virtuous people like themselves have both a…

— Thomas Sowell

No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to…

— Thomas Sowell

Love is a four-letter word, but you don't hear in nearly as often as you hear some other four-letter words. It may…

— Thomas Sowell

Even the Soviet Union, with its huge nuclear arsenal, was a threat that could be deterred by the prospect of retaliation. But…

— Thomas Sowell

Too often what are called "educated" people are simply people who have been sheltered from reality for years in ivy-covered buildings. Those…

— Thomas Sowell

Those who automatically say that the social pathology of the ghetto is due to poverty discrimination and the like cannot explain why…

— Thomas Sowell

“The dire poverty of the early nineteenth century Irish may be indicated by their average life expectancy of 19 years-compared to 36…

— Thomas Sowell

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

— Thomas Sowell

Because many of us make mistakes that can have bad consequences, some intellectuals believe that it is the role of government to…

— Thomas Sowell

“There have always been ignorant people, but they haven't always had college degrees to make them unaware of their ignorance. Some people…

— Thomas Sowell

Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a…

— Thomas Sowell