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

Thomas Sowell

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Thomas Sowell
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: June 30
Economist
University Teacher
Gastonia
North Carolina
Telling
Ways
Two
Truth
Posthumously
Way
Anonymously
Sarcastic
Honesty
Complete

More quotes by Thomas Sowell

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If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.
Thomas Sowell
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The political mirage of something for nothing, from leaders who 'care,' has ruined many a nation.
Thomas Sowell
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Politics is the art of making your selfish desires seem like the national interest.
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The murder of a dozen innocent people is unquestionably a human tragedy. But that is no excuse for reacting blindly by preventing hundreds of thousands of other people from defending themselves against meeting the same fate.
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Anyone who has actually had to take responsibility for consequences by running any kind of enterprise whether economic or academic, or even just managing a sports team is likely at some point to be chastened by either the setbacks brought on by his own mistakes or by seeing his successes followed by negative consequences that he never anticipated.
Thomas Sowell
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The reason so many people misunderstand so many issues is not that these issues are so complex, but that people do not want a factual or analytical explanation that leaves them emotionally unsatisfied. They want villains to hate and heroes to cheer - and they don't want explanations that do not give them that.
Thomas Sowell
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It doesnt matter what you do if you dont do what matters. If you do what matters it doesnt matter what you do.
Thomas Sowell
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Securities based on risky mortgages are what toppled financial institutions but it was the government that made the mortgages risky in the first place, by making home-ownership statistics the holy grail, for which everything else was to be sacrificed, including commonsense standards for making home loans.
Thomas Sowell
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Fairness' is one of the great mantras of the left. Since everyone has his own definition of fairness, that word is a blank check for the expansion of government power. What fairness means in practice is that third parties -- busybodies -- can prevent mutual accommodations by others.
Thomas Sowell
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If we spend our time with regrets over yesterday, and worries over what might happen tomorrow, we have no today in which to live.
Thomas Sowell
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Even when black youth gangs target white strangers on the streets and spew out racial hatred as they batter them and rob them, mayors, police chiefs and the media tiptoe around their racism and many in the media either don't cover these stories or leave out the race and racism involved.
Thomas Sowell
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Extrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument.
Thomas Sowell
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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.
Thomas Sowell
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Central planning, judicial activism, and the nanny state all presume vastly more knowledge than any elite have ever possessed.
Thomas Sowell
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Too many people - some of them judges - seem to think that freedom of speech means freedom from consequences for what you have said. If you believe that, try insulting your boss when you go to work tomorrow. Better yet, try insulting your spouse before going to bed tonight.
Thomas Sowell
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I am so old that I can remember when liberals were liberal - instead of being intolerant of anything and anybody that is not politically correct.
Thomas Sowell
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Too many people in Washington are full of themselves, among other things that they are full of.
Thomas Sowell
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Even the Soviet Union, with its huge nuclear arsenal, was a threat that could be deterred by the prospect of retaliation. But suicide bombers cannot be deterred. They can only be annihilated - preemptively and unilaterally, if necessary.
Thomas Sowell
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Egalitarians create the most dangerous inequality of all - inequality of power. Allowing politicians to determine what all other human beings will be allowed to earn is one of the most reckless gambles imaginable. Like the income tax, it may start off being applied only to the rich but it will inevitably reach us all.
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Child poverty in the United States declined after the work requirement was put in there. People realized that they had to work and people went out and worked and they got off welfare.
Thomas Sowell