Thomas Sowell quotes

“Do countries with strong gun control laws have lower murder rates? Only if you cherry-pick the data.”

— 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

“The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.”

— Thomas Sowell

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

— Thomas Sowell

“Balanced budget requirements seem more likely to produce accounting ingenuity than genuinely balanced budgets.”

— Thomas Sowell

“Creating whole departments of ethnic, gender, and other 'studies' was part of the price of academic peace. All too often, these 'studies' are about propaganda rather than serious education.”

— 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

“People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.”

— 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

“Would you bet your paycheck on a weather forecast for tomorrow? If not, then why should this country bet billions on global warming predictions that have even less foundation?”

— 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

“Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.”

— Thomas Sowell

“There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.”

— Thomas Sowell

“The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would have been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefitted them.”

— Thomas Sowell

“Although the big word on the left is 'compassion,' the big agenda on the left is dependency.”

— Thomas Sowell

“The real minimum wage is zero.”

— Thomas Sowell

“Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination.”

— Thomas Sowell

“Helping those who have been struck by unforeseeable misfortunes is fundamentally different from making dependency a way of life.”

— Thomas Sowell

“Actually lowering the cost of insurance would be accomplished by such things as making it harder for lawyers to win frivolous lawsuits against insurance companies.”

— Thomas Sowell

“Stopping illegal immigration would mean that wages would have to rise to a level where Americans would want the jobs currently taken by illegal aliens.”

— Thomas Sowell

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

— Thomas Sowell

“The more people who are dependent on government handouts, the more votes the left can depend on for an ever-expanding welfare state.”

— Thomas Sowell

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

— Thomas Sowell

“Being willing to donate the taxpayers' money is not the same as being willing to put your own money where your mouth is.”

— Thomas Sowell

“Few professors would dare to publish research or teach a course debunking the claims made in various ethnic, gender, or other 'studies' courses.”

— Thomas Sowell

“Groups that rose from poverty to prosperity seldom did so by having their own racial or ethnic leaders to follow.”

— Thomas Sowell

“A shortage is a sign that somebody is keeping the price artificially lower than it would be if supply and demand were allowed to operate freely.”

— Thomas Sowell

“All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.”

— 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 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.'”

— Thomas Sowell