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A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.

Thomas Sowell

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Thomas Sowell
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: June 30
Economist
University Teacher
Gastonia
North Carolina
Antithesis
Marketplace
Monopoly
Moral
Ideas

More quotes by 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.
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We might have been better off if the question of Obama's patriotism had been raised before he was first elected. Never should we ignore so many red flag warnings again.
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It is hard to read a newspaper or watch a television newscast without encountering someone who has come up with a new 'solution' to society's 'problems.'
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People who have never run even a modest little business assert with great certainty and indignation that heads of multinational corporations are paid much more than they are worth. People who know nothing about medicine and nothing about economics unhesi.
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Too many people in Washington are full of themselves, among other things that they are full of.
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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.
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Those who cry out that the government should 'do something' never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.
Thomas Sowell
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Economics is a study of cause-and-effect relationships in an economy. It's purpose is to discern the consequences of various ways of allocating resources which have alternative uses. It has nothing to say about philosophy or values, anymore than it has to say about music or literature.
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You may have the right to live anyway you like, but you don't have a right to have other people like it. Respect it or pay for it.
Thomas Sowell
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Has Obama ever grown even a potted plant, much less a business, a bank, a hospital or any of the numerous other institutions whose decisions he wants to control and override? But he can talk glibly about growing the economy. Arrogance is no substitute for experience. That is why the country is in the mess it is in now.
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All justice is inherently social. Can someone on a desert island be either just or unjust?
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To say that 'wealth in America is so unfairly distributed in America,' as Ronald Dworkin does, is grossly misleading when most wealth in the United States is not distributed: at all. People create it, earn it, save it, and spend it.
Thomas Sowell
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What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.
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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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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
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There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs.
Thomas Sowell
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For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before.
Thomas Sowell
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Sports are the reason I am out of shape. I watch them all on TV.
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One of the most important skills for political success is the ability to make confident assertions of absurdities or lies.
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Before the Iraq war I was quite disturbed by some of the neoconservatives, who were saying things like, What is the point of being a superpower if you can't do such-and-such, take on these responsibilities? The point of being a superpower is that people will leave you alone.
Thomas Sowell