The Words of Thomas Sowell

The most important decision is always who makes the decision.

— Uncommon Knowledge: Dismantling America (Robinson) (2010)

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A pro-black stance by white intellectuals enhances the latter's moral standing and self-esteem, whether or not the particular manifestation of that stance helps or harms blacks on net balance.

— Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005)

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Both the Sicilian mafia and the criminal tongs in China began as movements to defend the oppressed, so perhaps we should not be so painfully surprised that venerable American civil rights organizations have begun to degenerate into extortion rackets.

— Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays (2006), p. 450

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The vision of the left, and many conservatives underestimate this, is really a more attractive vision in itself. The only reason for not believing in it is that it doesn't work. If the world were the way the left conceives it to be, it would be a better world than the way the right conceives it to be. It just happens that the world is not that way.

— Free To Choose: Common Sense in a Senseless World (doc) (Riley) (2021)

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People who pride themselves on their "complexity" and deride others for being "simplistic" should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011)

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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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Our children and grandchildren may yet curse the day we began hyping race and ethnicity. There are countries where that has led to slaughters in the streets but you cannot name a country where it has led to greater harmony.

— Random Thoughts (2001)

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Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.

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

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When it comes to lifting people out of poverty, redistribution of income has a much poorer track record than the creation of wealth. In some places, such as Zimbabwe today, attempts at a redistribution of wealth have turned out to be a redistribution of poverty. While the creation of wealth may be more effective for enabling millions of people to rise out of poverty, it provides no special role for the political left, no puffed-up importance, no moral superiority. Redistribution is clearly better for the left.

— The Cure for Poverty? Wealth (2006)

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If you don’t believe in the innate unreasonableness of human beings, just try raising children.

— Controversial Essays (2002), p. 321

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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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Those who are primarily concerned about the well-being of the poor are likely to discover over time that much of the agenda of the left does not really do much good for the poor, and some of that agenda—environmental extremism, for example—actually makes the poor worse off.

— Controversial Essays (2002)

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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)

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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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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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Intolerance may not promote progress but it can promote survival. An intolerant Islamic world may outlast the Western world that seems ready to tolerate anything, including the undermining of its own fundamental values and threats to its continued existence.

— Random Thoughts (2001)

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Why anyone would think that criminals who disobey other laws, including laws against murder, would obey gun control laws is a mystery.

— The 'Gun Control' Farce: Part II (2015)

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No one is more determined to maintain an ideological monopoly than those academics who talk most about 'diversity' in a physical sense.

— Thomas Sowell's Column on Jewish World Review (2001)

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Ronald Reagan had a vision of America. Barack Obama has a vision of Barack Obama.

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

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Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true. But many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly—and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence.

— Economic Facts and Fallacies (2008)

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