The Words of Thomas Sowell

Continuing transactions between buyer and seller make sense only if value is subjective, each getting what is worth more subjectively. Economic transactions are not a zero-sum process, where one person loses whatever the other person gains.

— Basic Economics (2000)

ReadSowell.com

In politics, what matters is not what the facts are. What matters is what people believe, because people vote on the basis of what they believe and not on the basis of what the facts are.

— Uncommon Knowledge: The Housing Boom and Bust (Robinson) (2009)

ReadSowell.com

More frightening than any particular beliefs or policies is an utter lack of any sense of a need to test those beliefs and policies against hard evidence. Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.

— Who Really Cares? (2006)

ReadSowell.com

Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to “change the United States of America,” the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.

— Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays (2010), p. 6

ReadSowell.com

Whether blatant or subtle, brainwashing has become a major, time-consuming activity in American education at all levels. Some zealots have not hesitated to use the traditional brain-washing technique of emotional trauma in the classroom to soften up children for their message. Gruesome and graphic movies on nuclear war, for example, have reduced some school children to tears—after which the teacher makes a pitch for whatever movement claims to reduce such dangers. Another technique is the ambush shock: A seventh-grade teacher in Manhattan, for example, innocently asked her students to discuss their future plans—after which she said: ‘Haven’t any of you realized that in this world with nuclear weapons no one in this class will be alive in the year 2000?’

— Inside American Education (1993), Ch. 1

ReadSowell.com

If politicians stopped meddling with things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.

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

ReadSowell.com

Stupid people can create problems, but it often takes brilliant people to create a real catastrophe.

— Uncommon Knowledge: Social Justice Fallacies (Robinson) (2023)

ReadSowell.com

The only way anyone can have a right to something that has to be produced is to force someone else to produce it for him. The more things are provided as rights, the less the recipients have to work and the more others have to carry their load.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011), § "AFFORDABILITY"

ReadSowell.com

The fundamental difference between decision-makers in the market and decision-makers in government is that the former are subject to continuous and consequential feedback which can force them to adjust to what others prefer and are willing to pay for, while those who make decisions in the political arena face no such inescapable feedback to force them to adjust to the reality of other people’s desires and preferences.

— Intellectuals and Society (2009)

ReadSowell.com

If you believe in equal rights, then what do 'women's rights,' 'gay rights,' etc. mean? Either they are redundant or they are violations of the principle of equal rights for all.

— Random Thoughts (2001)

ReadSowell.com

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?

— Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays (2010)

ReadSowell.com

The left takes its vision seriously — more seriously than it takes the rights of other people. They want to be our shepherds. But that requires us to be sheep.

— Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays (2006)

ReadSowell.com

The great ideological divide is between those who believe that theories should be adjusted to reality and those who believe that reality must be adjusted to fit their theories. Many of the horrors of the 20th century were created by the latter. And such people are still with us, in many movements.

— Controversial Essays (2002)

ReadSowell.com

Historians of the future, when they look back on our times, may be completely baffled when trying to understand how Western civilization welcomed vast numbers of people hostile to the fundamental values of Western civilization, people who had been taught that they have a right to kill those who do not share their beliefs.

— Random Thoughts (2001)

ReadSowell.com

The human race began in poverty, so there's no mysterious explanation as to why some people are poor. The question is, why have some people gotten prosperous? Poverty is not a mystery to be solved by intellectuals.

— Uncommon Knowledge: Intellectuals and Society, Revisited (Robinson) (2012)

ReadSowell.com

Multiculturalism, like the caste system, tends to freeze people where the accident of birth has placed them. Unlike the caste system, multiculturalism holds out the prospect that, all cultures being equal, one's life chances should be the same— and that it is society's fault if these chances are not the same.

— Intellectuals and Race (2013)

ReadSowell.com

There are no solutions. There are trade-offs.

— Uncommon Knowledge: Intellectuals and Society, Revisited (Robinson) (2012)

ReadSowell.com

Those who cry out that the government should ‘do something’ never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.

— Applied Economics (2003)

ReadSowell.com

If you want to fulfill your duty as a citizen, then you need to become an informed voter. And if you are not informed, then the most patriotic thing you can do on election day is stay home. Otherwise your vote, based on whims or emotions, is playing Russian roulette with the fate of this nation.

— Why Have Elections? (2015)

ReadSowell.com

It is not enough for us to discover belatedly that we have been lied to. It is far more important that we remember who the liars are and not be so gullible next time.

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

ReadSowell.com