The Words of Thomas Sowell

Income is not distributed. Newspapers are distributed, Social Security checks are distributed. Income is not distributed. People earn it directly from those to whom they provide some good or service.

— Uncommon Knowledge - Thomas Sowell on the second edition of Intellectuals and Society (2012)

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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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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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Entitlement" is not only the opposite of achievement, it undermines incentives to do all the hard work that leads to achievement.

— Controversial Essays (2002)

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While slavery was common to all civilizations, as well as to peoples considered uncivilized, only one civilization developed a moral revulsion against it, very late in its history—Western civilization.

— Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005)

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We live in Western civilization. That's why you ought to study it... To talk about why do we study Western civilization rather than other civilizations, you might as well ask why do we study the Earth instead of other planets and other galaxies.

— WAMU: Inside American Education (Diane Rehm radio) (Rehm) (1993)

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Western civilization has survived the invasions of Genghis Khan from the East, the Ottoman Empire from the South, and two world wars originating from within. But whether it will survive its own intellectuals is much more doubtful.

— Is Reality Optional (1993)

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The ideas of the political left are not bad ideas. They just don't apply to human beings. That is why the left has always had to try to change human nature, whether through 're-education' camps 'brainwashing' in China, creating a "Soviet Man" in the U.S.S.R., or 'values clarification' programs in American schools.

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

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One of the reasons it has taken so long for some people to finally see through Barack Obama is that people do not like to admit, even to themselves, that they have been played for fools by a slick-talking politician.

— Random Thoughts (2001)

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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)

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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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Yes. Some years ago, the politicians in Maryland decided they were going to raise more revenue by increasing the taxes on people who had an income of a million dollars a year or more. But after they did this, the number of people with incomes of a million dollars or more in Maryland went down. Because rich people were not chess pieces, they moved out of Maryland. Instead of getting $100 million in new tax revenue like they predicted, Maryland got $200 million less in revenue.

— Thomas Sowell on Social Justice Fallacies: Racial Fallacies (2024)

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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)

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The dogma that no culture is superior to any other is contradicted by facts at every turn. Virtually every culture is superior to some other cultures at something. How many cultures can brew beer like the Germans, create wine like the French or make Sake like the Japanese?

— Controversial Essays (2002)

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Subjecting whole populations to the fancies of intellectuals and politicians has repeatedly proved deadly. That lesson has been written in blood across the history of the twentieth century.

— The Quest for Cosmic Justice (1999)

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It is a classic notion on the left in general, and of environmentalist zealots in particular, that no one can disagree with them unless they are either uninformed or dishonest.

— Global Hot Air: Part II (2007)

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If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today.

— Controversial Essays (2002)

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The Fourteenth Amendment provides for equal rights and equal protection of the laws. If you want more than that, then you are no longer talking about rights, but about special privileges.

— Controversial Essays (2002), § MURDER IS MURDER

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Liberals try to show their concern for the poor by raising the level of minimum wage laws. Yet they show no interest in hard evidence that minimum wage laws create disastrous levels of unemployment among young blacks in this country.

— Liberalism Versus Blacks (2013)

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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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