Thomas Sowell quotes

Thomas Sowell is a renowned economist, social theorist, and author. His brilliant analyses and insightful commentaries have earned him worldwide acclaim. With extensive knowledge in economics, Sowell has written numerous influential books addressing pressing social issues. He has embraced a unique approach to study markets, race, education, and government policies. Sowell's work emphasizes individualism and the importance of free markets in fostering prosperity. With his unparalleled expertise, Sowell continues to captivate readers and students of economics and social sciences alike. Explore the works of this distinguished thinker and gain valuable insights into the intricacies of our society.

No government of the left has done as much for the poor as capitalism has. Even when it comes to the redistribution of income, the left talks the talk but the free market walks the walk. What do the poor most need? They need to stop being poor. And how can that be done, on a mass scale, except by an economy that creates vastly more wealth? Yet the political left has long had a remarkable lack of interest in how wealth is created. As far as they are concerned, wealth exists somehow and the only interesting question is how to redistribute it.

- Thomas Sowell

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology accepts blacks in the top ten percent of students, but at MIT this puts them in the bottom ten percent of the class.

- Thomas Sowell

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

- Thomas Sowell

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

- Thomas Sowell

Both free speech rights and property rights belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.

- Thomas Sowell

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.

- Thomas Sowell

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.

- Thomas Sowell

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.

- Thomas Sowell

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

- Thomas Sowell

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

- Thomas Sowell

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

- Thomas Sowell

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

- Thomas Sowell

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 a government bureaucracy to administer it.

- Thomas Sowell

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

- Thomas Sowell

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

- Thomas Sowell

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

- Thomas Sowell

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

- Thomas Sowell

People who identify themselves as conservatives donate money to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes.

- Thomas Sowell

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.

- Thomas Sowell

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.

- Thomas Sowell

One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring.

- Thomas Sowell

If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.

- Thomas Sowell

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.

- Thomas Sowell

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.

- Thomas Sowell

Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don't need to imagine it. It's called the United States of America.

- Thomas Sowell

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.

- Thomas Sowell

Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated.

- Thomas Sowell

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

- Thomas Sowell

The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.

- Thomas Sowell

Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.

- Thomas Sowell