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When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.

Thomas Sowell

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Thomas Sowell
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: June 30
Economist
University Teacher
Gastonia
North Carolina
Conservative
Hear
Lying
Help
Helping
Tell
Truth
Propaganda
People
Voting

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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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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.
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Politeness and consideration for others is like investing pennies and getting dollars back.
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What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?
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Just what is it that academics have to fear if they stand up for common decency, instead of letting campus barbarians run amok?
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Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.
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The great allure of government programs in general for many people is that these programs allow decisions to be made without having to worry about the constraints of prices, which confront people at every turn in a free market.
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Deception is one of the quickest ways to gain little things and lose big things.
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The principles applied in economic processes are general social principles.
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The anointed don't like to talk about painful trade-offs. They like to talk about happy solutionsthat get rid of the whole problem- at least in their imagination.
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The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is he confuses it with feeling.
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The talkers and writers resent being left on the sidelines by the doers.
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Government bailouts are like potato chips: You can't stop with just one.
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If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.
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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.
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Liberals seem to assume that, if you don't believe in their particular political solutions, then you don't really care about the people that they claim to want to help.
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Someone once said that the most important knowledge is knowledge of our own ignorance. Our schools are depriving millions of students of that kind of knowledge by promoting self-esteem and encouraging them to have opinions on things of which they are grossly ignorant, if not misinformed.
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Relevance is not something you can predict. It is something you discover after the fact.
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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.
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Over the generations, black leaders have ranged from noble souls to shameless charlatans.
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