The principles applied in economic processes are general social principles. — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Social Engineering - The art of replacing what works with what sounds good. — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
A passionate commitment to social justice is no substitute for knowing what the hell you're talking about. — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Morality, like other inputs into the social process, follows the law of diminishing returns- meaning ultimately, negative returns. People can be too… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
All justice is inherently social. Can someone on a desert island be either just or unjust? — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Given that some social processes must convey inherent constraints, the choice is among various mixtures of persuasion, force, and cultural inducement. The… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
What do you call it when someone steals someone else's money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Much of the world today, including the United States, is still living in the social, cultural, and political aftermath of Britain's cultural… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and oppression breed wars. Most wars, however,… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Social values in general are incrementally variable: neither safety, diversity, rational articulation, nor morality is categorically a good thing to have more… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Someone once defined a social problem as a situation in which the real world differs from the theories of intellectuals. To the… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
The demands of unbounded individualism need to be weighed in the light of inherent social constraints which can only change their form… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
One of the most basic and pervasive social processes is the sorting and labeling of things, activities, and people... Sorting and labeling… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Informal relationships are not mere minor interstitial supplements to the major institutions of society. These informal relationships not only include important decision-making… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
If the truth is boring, civilization is irksome. The constraints inherent in civilized living are frustrating in innumerable ways. Yet those with… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Think things, not words." In words, many see a need for "social justice" to override "the dictates of… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
In its pursuit of justice for a segment of society, in disregard of the consequences for society as a whole, what is… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Liberals have been driven to the desperate expedient of attributing . . .social pathology in today's ghettos to 'a legacy of slavery'… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
So many idealistic political movements for a better world have ended in mass-murdering dictatorships. Giving leaders enough power to create 'social justice'… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Those who automatically say that the social pathology of the ghetto is due to poverty discrimination and the like cannot explain why… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
While rationalism at the individual level is a plea for more personal autonomy from cultural norms, at the social level it is… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
If you start from a belief that the most knowledgeable person on earth does not have even one percent of the total… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
There are no dead-end jobs. There are no dead-end jobs. There are only dead-end people. Our current social philosophy, and the welfare… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
The most basic inherent constraint is that neither time nor wisdom are free goods available in unlimited quantity. This means that in… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Freedom... refer[s] to a social relationship among people-namely, the absence of force as a prospective instrument of decision making. Freedom is reduced… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Lofty talk about 'social justice' or 'fairness' boils down to greatly expanded powers for politicians, since those pretty words have no concrete… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Progress in general seems to hold little interest for people who call themselves 'progressives.' What arouses them are denunciations of social failures… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
The vision of the left, full of envy and resentment, takes its worst toll on those at the bottom - whether black or white… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
There is no bigger waste of time than doing 90% of what is necessary. — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
“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… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Ideological bigotry has become the norm on even our most prestigious campuses, where students can go for years without reading or hearing anything that… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
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. — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
“One third of all Scots in the mid-nineteenth century moved from one county to another” — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
The difference is that we have the hardest and most painful evidence that there was a Holocaust. But, for the global warming scenario that… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
“Just as price fluctuations allocate scarce resources which have alternative uses, price controls which limit those fluctuations reduce the incentives for individuals to limit… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
The greatest danger to the liberal vision are facts about the consequences of liberalism itself and the laws, policies, and ways of life that… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Having spent years ruining the housing markets with their interference, leading to a housing meltdown that has taken the whole economy down with it,… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
Do all children have some inherent right to live in America if they have done nothing wrong? If not, then why should the children… — Thomas Sowell Copy Share Image
![“Freedom... refer[s] to a social relationship among people-namely, the absence of force as a prospective instrument of decision making. Freedom is reduced whenever a decision is made under threat of force, whether or not force actually materializes or is evident in retrospect.” quote by Thomas Sowell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/df6/thomas-sowell-247_absence_freedom-refer-s-to-a-social-relationship_3001827.jpg)
