“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.”
Source: The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy
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Thomas Sowell 101
American economist, social theorist, political philosopher … 1930Related quotes
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Context: Penguinia gloried in its wealth. Those who produced the things necessary for life, wanted them; those who did not produce them had more than enough. "But these," as a member of the Institute said, "are necessary economic fatalities." The great Penguin people had no longer either traditions, intellectual culture, or arts. The progress of civilisation manifested itself among them by murderous industry, infamous speculation, and hideous luxury. Its capital assumed, as did all the great cities of the time, a cosmopolitan and financial character. An immense and regular ugliness reigned within it. The country enjoyed perfect tranquillity. It had reached its zenith.
“Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.”
“Those who promise us paradise on earth never produced anything but a hell.”
As quoted in In Passing: Condolences and Complaints on Death, Dying, and Related Disappointments (2005) by Jon Winokur, p. 144
“Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.”
Essay Fourth, The Principles of the Former Essays Applied to Government
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The Contemporary English Novelist, La Nouvelle Revue française (1 May 1927)
