The Words of Thomas Sowell

You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth — and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated.

— The Fallacy of Redistribution (2012)

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While President Barack Obama has, in one sense, tipped his hand by saying that he wants judges with "empathy" for certain groups, he has in a more fundamental sense concealed the real goal - getting judges who will ratify an ever-expanding scope of the power of the federal government and an ever-declining restraint by the Constitution of the United States. This is consistent with everything else that Obama has done in office and is consistent with his decades-long track record of alliances with people who reject the fundamentals of American society.

— Empathy Versus Law: Part IV (2009)

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The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.

— Controversial Essays (2002), p. 318

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As imposed wage rates rise, so do job qualifications, so that less skilled or less experienced workers become 'unemployable.' Think about it. Every one of us would be 'unemployable' if our pay rates were raised high enough.

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

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The biggest and most deadly ‘tax’ rate on the poor comes from a loss of various welfare state benefits – food stamps, housing subsidies and the like – if their income goes up.

— Taxing the Poor (2012)

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Because of the neglect of history in our educational system, most people have no idea how many of the great American fortunes were created by people who were born and raised in worse poverty than the average welfare-recipient today.

— Controversial Essays (2002), p. 302

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Whites walk on eggshells for fear of being called racists, while many blacks are preoccupied with protecting the image of black students, rather than protecting their future by telling the blunt truth. It is understandable that some people are concerned about image, about what in private life might be expressed as: “What will the neighbors think?” But, when your children are dying, you don’t worry about what the neighbors think.

— Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005), p. 245

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We do not have a choice whether or not to discuss history. History has always been invoked in contemporary controversies. The only choice is between discussing what actually happened in the past and discussing notions projected into the past for present purposes. History is the memory of the human race. For an individual to wake up some morning with no memory would be devastating.

— Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005), p. 276

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There are people who will not stop until they get stopped — and much of the media, the political classes and the cultural elites of the West cannot bring themselves to even criticize, much less stop, the dangers or degeneracy among groups viewed sympathetically as underdogs.

— Riots in France (2005)

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When we have a system where children are fed in schools and other basic responsibilities are also lifted from the shoulders of their parents, why should we be surprised that the sense of parental responsibility seems to be eroding? We are not surprised when a couch potato doesn’t have the kind of muscles found on someone who exercises. Our society is increasingly turning out moral couch potatoes.

— The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011), § BOOMERS AND BOOMERANGS

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Knowledge can be enormously costly, and is often scattered in widely uneven fragments, too small to be individually usable in decision making. The communication and coordination of these scattered fragments of knowledge is one of the basic problems- perhaps the basic problem- of any society.

— Knowledge and Decisions (1980)

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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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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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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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I've often said there are three questions that would destroy most of the arguments on the left. The first is 'compared to what?' The second is 'at what cost?' And the third is 'what hard evidence do you have?'

— Thomas Sowell: In The Right Direction (2005)

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One of the many disservices done to young people by our schools and colleges is giving them the puffed-up notion that they are in a position to pass sweeping judgments on a world that they have barely begun to experience.

— Cheering Immaturity (2010)

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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 engineer is judged by the end product: if he builds a building that collapses, he's ruined. Conversely, if an intellectual who is brilliant has an idea for rearranging society and it ends in disaster, he pays no price at all.

— Thomas Sowell on Intellectuals and Society (2009)

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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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Different people have very different reactions to President Barack Obama. Those who listen to his rhetoric are often inspired, while those who follow what he actually does are often appalled.”

— Obama rhetoric is fine, results lagging (2009)

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