Quotes from Thomas Sowell

It is hard to read a newspaper or watch a television newscast without encountering someone who has come up with a new 'solution' to society's 'problems.'

Government's power to bully people who have broken no law is dangerous to all of us.

While rationalism at the individual level is a plea for more personal autonomy from cultural norms, at the social level it is often a claim- or arrogation- of power to stifle the autonomy of others.

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.

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

You may have the right to live anyway you like, but you don't have a right to have other people like it. Respect it or pay for it.

If you have a right to respect, that means other people don't have a right to their own opinions.

One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.

Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare.

Central planning, judicial activism, and the nanny state all presume vastly more knowledge than any elite have ever possessed.

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support -- kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as 'racists'

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.

If you want to get each individual's honest opinion, you don't want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.

For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert, but for every fact there is not necessarily an equal and opposite fact.

All statements are true, if you are free to redefine their terms.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

The same set of statistics can produce opposite conclusions at different levels of aggregation.

All things are the same except for the differences, and different except for the similarities.

The inefficiency of political control of an economy has been demonstrated more often, in more places, and under more varied conditions, than almost anything outside the realm of pure science.

Any statistics can be extrapolated to the point where they show disaster.

Most variables can show either an upward or downward trend, depending on the base year chosen.

Organizational progress parallels that in science and technology, permitting ultimate simplicity through intermediate complexity.

No society ever thrived because it had a large and growing class of parasites living off those who produce.