The Words of Thomas Sowell

Those who want to see quality education remain available to youngsters in low-income minority neighborhoods must raise the question, again and again, when various policies and practices are proposed: 'How is this going to affect the education of children?' Surprisingly large proportion of policies and practices cannot answer that question.

— Charter Schools and Their Enemies (2020)

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Many issues are misconstrued, not because they are too complex for most people to understand, but because a mundane explanation is far less emotionally satisfying than an explanation which produces villains to hate and heroes to exalt.

— Intellectuals and Society (2009), § The Dramatic

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When you consider what an enormous windfall gain it is to be born in America, it is painful to hear some people complain bitterly that someone else got a bigger windfall gain than they did.

— Random Thoughts (2001)

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The number of Whites who were enslaved in North Africa by the Barbary pirates exceeded the number of Africans enslaved in the United States and in the American colonies before that put together. But nobody is going to North Africa to ask for reparations.

— Maverick: Jason Riley On The Life And Times Of Thomas Sowell (2020)

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It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

— A Childish Letter (1998)

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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 what somebody else did.

— Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays (2006), p. 454

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Libertarians seem to have this atomistic view of the world, which I think is completely unrealistic, because not only in my life, but in the lives of people around me, the surroundings make a huge difference.

— The Rubin Report Interview with Thomas Sowell (2018)

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Slavery existed all over the world for thousands of years among all sorts of people, as far back as the history of the human species goes. It’s one of many evils that the Left tries to localize, when in fact it is a universal evil.

— Video Interview

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There are people who can neither find happiness in their own lives nor permit those around them to be happy. The best you can do is get such people out of your life.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011), § Random Thoughts

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The secret of the welfare state is you can do almost anything in the short run, juggling money from here to there. But in the long run, the arithmetic can't be ignored, and you're gonna run out of money.

— Uncommon Knowledge: The Trickle-Down Lie (Robinson) (2012)

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The word ‘racism’ is like ketchup. It can be put on practically anything – and demanding evidence makes you a ‘racist.’

— A Political Glossary (2012)

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Barack Obama’s political genius is his ability to say things that will sound good to people who have not followed the issues in any detail, regardless of how obviously fraudulent what he says may be to those who have.

— Obama’s ‘Balanced’ Approach (2011)

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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 other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks.

— The Benefits and Hypocrisy of Playing the Slavery Card (1995)

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Of all ignorance, the ignorance of the educated is the most dangerous. Not only are educated people likely to have more influence, they are the last people to suspect that they don't know what they are talking about.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011)

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You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth — and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated. Farmers in the Soviet Union cut back on how much time and effort they invested in growing their crops, when they realized that the government was going to take a big part of the harvest. They slaughtered and ate young animals that they would normally keep tending and feeding until maturity.

— The Fallacy of Redistribution (2012)

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

— Knowledge and Decisions (1980), p. 79

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If there is one thing that is bipartisan in Washington, it is brazen hypocrisy.

— Supreme Hypocrisy (2016)

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Affirmative action is racism under new management.

— Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)

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The concept of ‘microaggression’ is just one of many tactics used to stifle differences of opinion by declaring some opinions to be ‘hate speech,’ instead of debating those differences in a marketplace of ideas. To accuse people of aggression for not marching in lockstep with political correctness is to set the stage for justifying real aggression against them.”

— Micro-totalitarianism (2015)

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The human race began in poverty, so there is no mysterious explanation as to why some people are poor. The question is, why have some people gotten prosperous, and in particular why have some gotten prosperous to a greater degree than others.

— Thomas Sowell on the second edition of Intellectuals and Society

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