The Words of Thomas Sowell

If you’re going to have reparations for slavery, it’s going to be the greatest transfer of wealth back and forth, because the number of Whites who were enslaved in North Africa by the Barbary Pirates exceeded the number of Africans enslaved in the United States.

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

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Since wealth is the only thing that can cure poverty, you might think that the left would be as obsessed with the creation of wealth as they are with the redistribution of wealth. But you would be wrong.

— Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays (2010)

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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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By cheering on counterproductive attitudes, making excuses for self-defeating behavior, and promoting the belief that “racism” accounts for most of blacks’ problems, white intellectuals serve their own psychic, ideological, and political interests.They are the kinds of friends who can do more harm than enemies. A crucial fact about white liberals must be kept in mind:They are not simply in favor of blacks in general. Their solicitude is poured out for blacks as victims, blacks as welfare mothers, criminals, political activists against the larger society, as well as those blacks who serve as general counter-cultural symbols against the larger society. White liberals have nothing approaching the same interest in blacks as the principal victims of black criminals or as people advancing themselves within the existing framework of American society, including many who have risen within the military, nor do they get particularly worked up over blacks who build up their own human capital or business capital. None of the many reports of black schools that excel academically seems to arouse any great interest among white liberals. It was not the liberals in Washington, but the Reagan administration, which offered successful black educator Marva Collins an appointment as Secretary of Education."

— Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005), p. 57-58

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If it were possible to enforce a ban on lying, a ghastly silence would fall over the city of Washington.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011)

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We all enter the world knowing nothing but, by the time we are teenagers, we know it all. Sometimes it is decades later before we know enough to realize how little we know."

— Dismantling America: And Other Controversial Essays (2010), p. 334

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Intellectuals as a class are dependent upon the backing of political power to impose their visions on the underlying population.

— Knowledge and Decisions (1980)

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Life does not ask us what we want. It presents us with options."

— Basic Economics (2000), p. 23

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The welfare state is the greatest confidence racket of all time. The government takes your money in taxes and then turns around and spends some of it to give you things. For this, you feel dependent on them, when in fact they are dependent on you.”

— Controversial Essays (2002), p. 306

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Our tax system penalizes those who are producing wealth in order to subsidize those who are only consuming it.

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

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There was a time when we honored those who created the prosperity and the freedom that we enjoy. Today we honor the complainers and sue the creators. Perhaps that is inevitable in an era when we no longer count our blessings, but instead count all our unfulfilled wishes.

— Controversial Essays (2002)

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Intellectuals have no interest in what creates wealth and what inhibits the creation of wealth. They are very concerned about the distribution of it, but they act as if wealth just exists somehow, like manna from heaven. It's only a question of how we split it up.

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

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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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How are children supposed to learn to act like adults, when so much of what they see on television shows adults acting like children?

— Random Thoughts (2001)

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More whites were brought as slaves to North Africa than blacks brought as slaves to the United States or to the 13 colonies from which it was formed. White slaves were still being bought and sold in the Ottoman Empire, decades after blacks were freed in the United States.

— The Real History of Slavery (2004)

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One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again. Do we need to keep repeating the same mistakes forever?

— Jewish World Review Column by Thomas Sowell (2001)

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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 problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.

— Inside American Education (1993), Ch. 1

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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)

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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

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