Thomas Sowell

Facts are not liberals strong suit. Rhetoric is

Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and posthumously

Much of the social history of the western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young

Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination

Too much of what is called education is little more than expensive isolation from reality

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

Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty

The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best

People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do

Helping those who have been struck by unforeseeable misfortunes is fundamentally different from making dependency a way of life

The more people who are dependent on government handouts, the more votes the left can depend on for an ever expanding welfare state

The word 'racism' is like ketchup. It can be put on practically anything – and demanding evidence makes you a racist

You will never understand bureaucracies until you understand that for bureaucrats procedure is everything and outcomes are nothing

Capitalism is only one color: that color is green; all else is necessarily a subservient to it, hence, race, gender and ethnicity cannot be considered within it

The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers

Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them

The real minimum wage is zero

The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders. Such leaders have too many incentives to promote polarizing attitudes and actions that are counterproductive for minorities and disastrous for the country

President Obama seems completely unaware of how many of the policies he is trying to impose have been tried before, in many times and places around the world, and have failed time and again

All too often when liberals cite statistics, they forget the statisticians warning that correlation is not causation

Over the generations, black leaders have ranged from noble souls to shameless charlatans

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything

The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would’ve gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong

The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive

The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would’ve been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefited them

If the people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand the difference, and choose their news sources accordingly

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long

We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics

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

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and the government bureaucracy to administer it

Liberals seem to assume that, if you don’t believe in their particular political solutions, then you don’t really care about the people that they claim to want to help

If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism

Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late

One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them

What multiculturalism boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except western culture – and you cannot blame any culture in the world except western culture

Do countries with strong gun control laws have lower murder rates? Only if you cherry pick the data

All the political angst and moral melodrama about getting the rich to pay their fair share is part of a big charade. This is not about economics, it is about politics

Actually lowering the cost of insurance would be accomplished by such things as making it harder for lawyers to win frivolous lawsuits against insurance companies

Few professors would dare to publish research or teach a course debunking the claims made in various ethnic, gender, or other studies courses