Thomas Sowell on barbarism and civilization

Guilt has so furtively stolen into many hearts and minds that people feel apologetic about being civilized, educated and productive when others are barbaric, uneducated and parasitic.  When civilization apologizes to barbarism, something has gone very wrong at a fundamental level.

~ Thomas Sowell

  

Thomas Sowell on socialism

The strongest argument for socialism is that it sounds good.  The strongest argument against socialism is that it doesn’t work.  But those who live by words will always have a soft spot in their hearts for socialism because it sounds so good. 

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on war on the productive

No society ever thrived because it had a large and growing class of parasites living off those who produce.

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on envy

Envy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name, "social justice."

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on why the elites hate the free market

One of the problems with the market from the standpoint of those who think that they are the brightest, the best, and ought to be telling the rest of us groundlings what to do, is that the market allows ordinary people to go out there and make their own decisions.  And people who think they have the Truth and the Light don't want that; they want no part of that.  It's really what they hate most, I think, about a market system.

~ Thomas Sowell, "Interview with Thomas Sowell," Reason, December, 1980

Thomas Sowell on social justice

Envy plus rhetoric equals 'social justice.'

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on equality

A society that puts equality - in the sense of equality of outcome - ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality or freedom.  The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on being a young political leftist

One of the bittersweet things about growing old is realizing how mistaken you were when you were young.  As a young political leftist, I saw the left as the voice of the common man.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on skin in the game

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on good intentions

Nothing is easier than to have good intentions but, without an understanding of how an economy works, good intentions can lead to disastrous consequences for a whole nation.

~ Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics

Thomas Sowell on collective guilt and individual responsibility

Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on fairness

Since this is an era when many people are concerned about "fairness" and "social justice," what is your "fair share" of what someone else has worked for?

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on dis-education and decline

Ours may be the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children.  In an age of artificial intelligence, they are creating artificial stupidity.

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on environmentalism

I wish that some way could be found to add up all the staggering costs imposed on millions of ordinary people, just so a relative handful of self-righteous environmental cultists can go around feeling puffed up with themselves. 

~ Thomas Sowell

Save Our Cities, Soil, Air, Water
1970

Thomas Sowell on voting

If you are not informed, then the most patriotic thing you can do on election day is stay home.

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on traditions

For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before.

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on cancel culture

Historians of the future will have a hard time figuring out how so many organized groups of strident jackasses succeeded in leading us around by the nose and morally intimidating the majority into silence.

~ Thomas Sowell, tweet, November 19, 2020

Thomas Sowell on how the left treats the black community

When the political left wants to help the black community, they usually want to help the worst elements in that community—thugs they portray as martyrs, for example—without the slightest regard for negative effects this can have on the lives of the majority of decent black people.

~ Thomas Sowell, tweet, October 29, 2020

Thomas Sowell on the corruption of journalism

Journalists cannot serve two masters. To the extent that they take on the task of suppressing information or biting their tongue for the sake of some political agenda, they are betraying the trust of the public and corrupting their own profession.

~ Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell on educating the younger generation

We're raising whole generations who regard facts as more or less optional. And they are being taught that it's important to have views, and they're not being taught that it's important to know what you're talking about. It's important to hear the opposite viewpoint and more important, to learn how to distinguish why viewpoint A and viewpoint B are different and which one has the most evidence or logic behind it. 

~ Thomas Sowell, Hoover Institute interview, 7:50 mark, posted on YouTube September 18, 2020