Thomas Sowell Quotes

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Thomas Sowell

Profession : Economist

Birth : June 30, 1930

The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.

Thomas Sowell

Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.

Thomas Sowell

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

Thomas Sowell

Capitalism knows only one color: that color is green; all else is necessarily subservient to it, hence, race, gender and ethnicity cannot be considered within it.

Thomas Sowell

The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.

Thomas Sowell

Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more.

Thomas Sowell

The real minimum wage is zero.

Thomas Sowell

The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his 'basic rights.'

Thomas Sowell

Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.

Thomas Sowell

Although the big word on the left is 'compassion,' the big agenda on the left is dependency.

Thomas Sowell

One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them.

Thomas Sowell

The more people who are dependent on government handouts, the more votes the left can depend on for an ever-expanding welfare state.

Thomas Sowell

Facts are not liberals' strong suit. Rhetoric is.

Thomas Sowell

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

Thomas Sowell

All too often when liberals cite statistics, they forget the statisticians' warning that correlation is not causation.

Thomas Sowell

Liberals seem to assume that, if you don't believe in their particular political solutions, then you don't really care about the people that they claim to want to help.

Thomas Sowell

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

Thomas Sowell

Over the generations, black leaders have ranged from noble souls to shameless charlatans.

Thomas Sowell

Even the Soviet Union, with its huge nuclear arsenal, was a threat that could be deterred by the prospect of retaliation. But suicide bombers cannot be deterred. They can only be annihilated - preemptively and unilaterally, if necessary.

Thomas Sowell

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

Thomas Sowell