Quote

Facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.

Thomas Sowell

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thomas Sowell
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: June 30
Economist
University Teacher
Gastonia
North Carolina
Speak
Competing
Facts
Isolated
Divorce
Curiosity
Mere
Curiosities
Theory
Visions
Vision
Divorced
Economy
Theories

More quotes by Thomas Sowell

Image
One of the beauties of an economy coordinated by price movements is that nobody has to understand it in order for it to work.
Thomas Sowell
Image
The more adaptability exists for a given kind of decision, the less risky it is to make plans for the future, and therefore the more likely it is that more people will make more plans in such areas.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Freedom is unlikely to be lost all at once and openly. It is far more likely to be eroded away, bit by bit, amid glittering promises and expressions of noble ideals.
Thomas Sowell
Image
The government is now in a position to do what Franklin D. Roosevelt did during the Great Depression of the 1930s - use a crisis of the times to create new institutions that will last for generations. To this day, we are still subsidizing millionaires in agriculture because farmers were having a tough time in the 1930s.
Thomas Sowell
Image
The most politically painless way to hand out goodies, without taking responsibility for their costs, is to pass a law saying that somebody else must provide those goodies at their expense, while the politicians take credit for generosity and compassion.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Envy plus rhetoric equals social justice..
Thomas Sowell
Image
An independent judiciary does not mean judges independent of the Constitution from which they derive their power or independent of the laws that they are sworn to uphold.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Nobody is equal to anybody. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days.
Thomas Sowell
Image
The real problem, both in discussions of mass shootings and in discussions of gun control, is that too many people are too committed to a vision to allow mere facts to interfere with their beliefs, and the sense of superiority that those beliefs give them.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Racism does not have a good track record. It's been tried out for a long time and you'd think by now we'd want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management.
Thomas Sowell
Image
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
Image
You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth - and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated.
Thomas Sowell
Image
You have to have a sense of humor if you follow politics. Otherwise, the sheer fraudulence of it all will get you down.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Four things have almost invariably followed the imposition of controls to keep prices below the level they would reach under supply and demand in a free market: (1) increased use of the product or service whose price is controlled, (2) Reduced supply of the same product or service, (3) quality deterioration, (4) black markets.
Thomas Sowell
Image
The government does not have some magic wand that can 'bring down the cost of health care.' It can buy a smaller quantity or lower quality of medical care, as other countries with government-run medical care do.
Thomas Sowell
Image
In this era of political correctness, some people seem unaware that being squeamish about words can mean being blind to realities.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism.
Thomas Sowell
Image
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
Image
The principles applied in economic processes are general social principles.
Thomas Sowell