The Words of Thomas Sowell

Envy used to be just a human failing, but today it is a major industry. Politicians, journalists and academics are all part of that industry, which some call ‘social justice.’

— Hard Times for Envy (2003)

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You might think that the collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe would be considered a decisive failure for Marxism, but academic Marxists in America are utterly undaunted. Their paychecks and their tenure are unaffected. Their theories continue to flourish in the classrooms and their journals continue to litter the library shelves.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011)

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The oldest fraud is the belief that the political left is the party of the poor and the downtrodden.

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

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Would you bet your paycheck on a weather forecast for tomorrow? If not, then why should this country bet billions on 'global warming' predictions that have even less foundation?

— Random Thoughts (1999)

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That people on the political left have a certain set of opinions… is not surprising. What is surprising, however, is how often the opinions of those on the left are accompanied by hostility and even hatred.

— The Anger Of The Left (2007)

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It was the Africans who enslaved their fellow Africans, selling some of these slaves to Europeans or to Arabs and keeping others for themselves. Even at the peak of the Atlantic slave trade, Africans retained more slaves for themselves than they sent to the Western Hemisphere.

— Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005)

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The illusion that you can take in large numbers of people from a fundamentally different culture, without jeopardizing your own culture — and everything that depends on it — should have been dispelled by many counterproductive social consequences in Europe, even aside from the fatal dangers of terrorists.

— Obama’s speech showcases arrogant delusions (2015)

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High tax rates in the upper income brackets allow politicians to win votes with class warfare rhetoric, painting their opponents as defenders of the rich. Meanwhile, the same politicians can win donations from the rich by creating tax loopholes that can keep the rich from actually paying those higher tax rates - or perhaps any taxes at all. What is worse than class warfare is phony class warfare. Slippery talk about 'fairness' is at the heart of this fraud by politicians seeking to squander more of the nation's resources.

— The 'Fairness' Fraud (2012)

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If you want to see the poor remain poor, generation after generation, just keep the standards low in their schools and make excuses for their academic shortcomings and personal misbehavior. But please don’t congratulate yourself on your compassion.

— Controversial Essays (2002), p. 306

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The soaring crime rates that followed the liberal nostrums of the 1960s have produced no change of mind. Liberals are often wrong but never in doubt. They are still blaming social conditions, “society,” America. It will never occur to them to blame themselves.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011), § PASSING IN REVIEW

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It is so easy to be wrong-and to persist in being wrong-when the costs of being wrong are paid by others.

— The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy (1995), p. 136

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Affirmative action is racism under new management.

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

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Is diversity our strength? Or anybody’s strength, anywhere in the world? Does Japan’s homogeneous population cause the Japanese to suffer? Have the Balkans been blessed by their heterogeneity – or does the very word 'Balkanization' remind us of centuries of strife, bloodshed and unspeakable atrocities, extending into our own times?

— Is Diversity Our Strength? (2016)

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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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Abraham Lincoln once asked an audience how many legs a dog has if you count the tail as a leg. When they answered "five," Lincoln told them that the answer was four. The fact that you called the tail a leg did not make it a leg.

— Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays (2010)

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

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011), § Human Livestock

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In the academic world, diversity means black leftists, white leftists, female leftists, and Hispanic leftists. Demographic diversity conceals ideological conformity.

— Controversial Essays (2002)

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The biggest difference between the left and right today, when it comes to racial issues, is that liberals tend to take the side of those blacks who are doing the wrong things — hoodlums the left depicts as martyrs, while the right defends those blacks more likely to be the victims of those hoodlums.

— Black and White, Left and Right (2016), 22

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The politically correct party line on minimum wages is that people cannot afford to raise their families on low pay, so the government has to force employers to provide "a living wage" for families. But the vast majority of people making minimum wages are youngsters just beginning their careers.

— Controversial Essays (2002)

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Degrees show that you have knowledge in some special area. Too often they embolden people to pontificate on a wide range of other subjects where they don’t know what they are talking about.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011)

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