Thomas Sowell: Trending quotes

“It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites.”

“Some of the most vocal critics of the way things are being done are people who have done nothing themselves, and whose only contributions to society are their complaints and moral exhibitionism.”

“Although I am ready to defend what I have said, many people expect me to defend what others have attributed to me.”

“It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.”

“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”

“When we hear about rent control or gun control, we may think about rent or guns but the word that really matters is 'control.' That is what the political left is all about, as you can see by the incessant creation of new restrictions in places where they are strongly entrenched in power, such as San Francisco or New York.”

“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.”

“People who pride themselves on their "complexity" and deride others for being "simplistic" should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.”

“If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.”

“One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.”

“The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.”

“Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster.”

“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”

“Racism does not have a good track record. It's been tried out for a long time and you'd think by now we'd want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management.”

“Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on "income distribution," the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.”

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

“Don't you get tired of seeing so many "non-conformists" with the same non-conformist look?”

“Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.”

“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?”