Thomas Sowell citations

Page 4

“Je n'ai jamais compris pourquoi c'est de la "cupidité" de vouloir garder l'argent que l'on a gagné, mais pas de la cupidité de vouloir prendre l'argent des autres”

“Malgré une littérature sur la "distribution des revenus" volumineuse et souvent fervente, le fait est que la plupart des revenus ne sont pas distribués : Ils sont gagnés.”

“L'une des conséquences de ces notions de "droits" est que des personnes qui n'ont rien apporté à la société estiment que celle-ci leur doit quelque chose, apparemment simplement pour avoir été assez plaisantes pour nous honorer de leur présence.”

“À une époque où de nombreuses personnes se préoccupent de "l'équité" et de la "justice sociale", quelle est votre "part équitable" de ce qu'un d'autre a gagné ?”

“One of the most ridiculous defenses of foreign aid is that it is a very small part of our national income. If the average American set fire to a five-dollar bill, it would be an even smaller percentage of his annual income. But everyone would consider him foolish for doing it.”

“Most problems do not get solved. They get superseded by other concerns.”

“People who think that they are being "exploited" should ask themselves whether they would be missed if they left, or whether people would say: "Good riddance?"”

“What the welfare system and other kinds of governmental programs are doing is paying people to fail. In so far as they fail, they receive the money; in so far as they succeed, even to a moderate extent, the money is taken away.”

“Right after liberal Democrats, the most dangerous politicians are country club Republicans.”

“History shows that degeneracy can be turned around because it has been done in the past. But the real question today is: Will we turn it around-or is what we are doing likely to make matters worse?”

“Neither in nature nor among human beings are either equal or randomly distributed outcomes automatic. On the contrary, grossly unequal distributions of outcomes are common, both in nature and among people, in circumstances where neither genes nor discrimination are involved… The idea that it would be a level playing field, if it were not for either genes or discrimination, is a preconception in defiance of both logic and facts.”

“It is amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. Using this kind of reasoning, you can believe or not believe anything about anything, without having to bother to deal with facts or logic.”

“To the economically illiterate, if some company makes a million dollars in profit, this means that their products cost a million dollars more than they would have cost without profits. It never occurs to such people that these products might cost several million dollars more to produce if they were produced by enterprises operating without the incentives to be efficient created by the prospect of profits.”

“The greatness of a free-market economy is that it does not depend upon the wisdom of those who happen to be on top at the moment.”