All Thomas Sowell Quotes
- When you start off by telling those who disagree with you that they are not merely in error but in sin, how much of a… Dialogue
- Politeness and consideration for others is like investing pennies and getting dollars back. Consideration
- There is no talent so ardently supported, nor generously rewarded, as the ability to convince parasites they are victims. Ability
- Compassion is the use of public funds to buy votes Buy
- Why is history important? Without history, many people have no idea how many of today's half-baked ideas have been tried, again and again - and… Baked
- One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and oppression breed wars. Most wars, however, are started by… Ambition
- If you have a right to respect, that means other people don't have a right to their own opinions. Means
- Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest. Art
- Our fate is matched by the total freedom we have to react to our fate. It is as if we were dealt a hand of… Card
- Whenever people talk glibly of a need to achieve educational "excellence," I think of what an improvement it would be if our public schools could… Achieve
- Sports are the reason I am out of shape. I watch them all on TV. All
- 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… Absence
- Why the transfer of decisions from those with personal experience and a stake in the outcome to those with neither can be expected to lead… Answered
- Any politician who starts shouting election-year demagoguery about the rich and the poor should be asked, "What about the other 90 percent of the people?" Any
- One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those… Canonized
- The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves. You… All
- We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for… All
- No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: 'But what would you replace it with?' When… Anyone
- If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when… Been
- Capitalism is not an 'ism.' It is closer to being the opposite of an 'ism,' because it is simply the freedom of ordinary people to… Agree
- People who are very aware that they have more knowledge than the average person are often very unaware that they do not have one-tenth of… All
- Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved… Africa
- The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people's money away quietly, and then you give some of it… Away Quietly
- If politicians were serious about day care for children, instead of just sloganizing about it, nothing they could do would improve the quality of child… Both
- Liberals love to say things like, "We're just asking everyone to pay their fair share." But government is not about asking. It is about telling.… Anybody