One can never get enough quotes from the pen of Sowell:
By my count I have over 30 volumes by the great Thomas Sowell. Also by my count, I have some 135 articles on my CultureWatch website featuring him, either directly or indirectly, with quotes, book reviews or article reviews. That should tell you that I have a very high regard for Sowell.
He is a very important thinker, commentator and writer, and amazingly he is still going strong at 95. The Black American economist started off as a Marxist but went on to become one of America’s greatest conservatives and free marketeers. There are not all that many other folks like him, although the late Walter Williams came very close indeed. See more on him here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2020/12/04/walter-williams/
As to Sowell, I have a number of articles in which I discuss the man and his work. Here are just two of them: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2019/11/26/the-failed-vision-of-the-anointed/
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2023/10/24/sowell-on-social-justice/
And I have a number of pieces simply featuring terrific quotes from him, such as this one: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2024/12/15/30-classic-quotes-on-education-by-thomas-sowell/
Here I will offer some more quotes. Many of his volumes I could run with here, but simply making use of the 450-page book, The Thomas Sowell Reader (Basic Books, 2011) would be one good way to start getting into Sowell if you need an introduction.
The final chapter in the book is titled “Random Thoughts” and it contains around 100 of his short, punchy and brilliant quotes. Let me offer you some of them here:
“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.”
“Let’s face it, most of us are not half as smart as we sometimes think we are — and for intellectuals, not one-tenth as smart.”
“There is no greater indictment of judges than the fact that honest people are afraid to go into court, while criminals swagger out its revolving doors.”
“Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like a national interest.”
“The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his ‘basic rights’.”
“What is called an educated person is often someone who has had a dangerously superficial exposure to a wide spectrum of subjects.”
“Government bailouts are like potato chips: You can’t stop with just one.”
“If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.”
“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”
“Thanksgiving may be our most old-fashioned holiday. Gratitude itself seems out of date at a time when so many people feel ‘entitled’ to whatever they get—and indignant that they didn’t get more.”
“‘Funding’ is one of the big phony words of our times — used by people too squeamish to say ‘money’ but not too proud to take it, usually from the taxpayers.”
“Envy plus rhetoric equals ‘social justice’.”
“Historians of the future will have a hard time figuring out how so many organized groups of strident jackasses succeeded in leading us around by the nose and morally intimidating the majority into silence.”
“No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: ‘But what would you replace it with?’ When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with?”
“No matter how much people on the left talk about compassion, they have no compassion for the taxpayers.”
“Some ideas so plausible that they can fail nine times in a row and still be believed the tenth time. Other ideas sound so implausible that they can succeed nine times in a row and still not be believed the tenth time. Government controls in the economy are among the first kinds of ideas and the operations of the free market are among the second kind.”
“Much of what are called ‘social problems’ consists of the fact that intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world. From this they conclude that it is the real world which is wrong and needs changing.”
“Egalitarians create the most dangerous inequality of all— inequality of power. Allowing politicians to determine what other human beings will be allowed to earn is one of the most reckless gambles imaginable.”
“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.”
“I am so old I can remember when other people’s achievements were considered to be an inspiration, rather than a grievance.”
“A careful definition of words would destroy half the agenda of the political left and scrutinizing evidence would destroy the other half.”
“If people had been as mealy-mouthed in centuries past as they are today, Ivan the Terrible might have been called Ivan the Inappropriate.”
And a few more quotes, this time from Ever Wonder Why? And Other Controversial Essays (Hoover Institution Press, 2006) which also has a chapter titled “Random Thoughts”:
“It is a little much when people come to this country preaching hatred against others and demanding tolerance for themselves.”
“Those who want to take our money and gain power over us have discovered the magic formula: Get us envious or angry at others and we will surrender, in installments, not only our money but our freedom. The most successful dictators of the 20th century—Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao—all used this formula and now class warfare politicians here are doing the same.”
“The scariest thing about politics today is not any particular policy or leaders, but the utter gullibility with which the public accepts notions for which there is not a speck of evidence, such as the benefits of ‘diversity,’ the dangers of ‘overpopulation,’ and innumerable other fashionable dogmas.”
“It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medications somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medications and a government bureaucracy to administer ‘universal health care’.”
“Much of what is promoted as ‘critical thinking’ in our public schools is in fact uncritical negativism towards the history and institutions of America and an uncritical praise of the cultures of foreign countries and domestic minorities.”
“It is self-destructive for any society to create a situation where a baby who is born into the world today automatically has pre-existing grievances against another baby born at the same time, because of what their ancestors did centuries ago. It is hard enough to solve our own problems, without trying to solve our ancestors’ problems.”
“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.”
And lastly, a few bonus quotes:
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?”
“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 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.”
“Mystical references to ‘society’ and its programs to ‘help’ may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.”
“Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.”
“If politicians stopped meddling with things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.”
“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”
[1342 words]
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Source: More Gems from Thomas Sowell
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