Quote

Unbounded morality ultimately becomes counterproductive even in terms of the same moral principles being sought. The law of diminishing returns applies to morality.

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
Terms
Unbounded
Return
Diminishing
Becomes
Counterproductive
Principles
Applies
Term
Returns
Law
Sought
Moral
Ultimately
Even
Morality

More quotes by Thomas Sowell

Image
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
Image
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
Image
When a highly successful leader retires after a long career, it is very unlikely that his successor will be of comparable caliber. Anyone of similar ability and drive would have gone somewhere else, instead of waiting in the wings for years for a chance to show his own leadership.
Thomas Sowell
Image
The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Reality is not optional.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Relevance is not something you can predict. It is something you discover after the fact.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Life has many good things. The problem is that most of these good things can be gotten only by sacrificing other good things. We all recognize this in our daily lives. It is only in politics that this simple, common sense fact is routinely ignored.
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
Let's face it, most of us are not half as smart as we may sometimes think we are-- and for intellectuals, not one-tenth as smart.
Thomas Sowell
Image
To say the Constitution is living is to say that it's dead.
Thomas Sowell
Image
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.
Thomas Sowell
Image
People used to say, Ignorance is no excuse. Today, ignorance is no problem. After all, you have a right to your own opinion - and self-esteem to boot.
Thomas Sowell
Image
The freedom of America is the freedom to live your own life and take your own chances.
Thomas Sowell
Image
The difference between a policy and a crusade is that a policy is judged by its results, while a crusade is judged by how good it makes its crusaders feel.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Don't you get tired of seeing so many non-conformists with the same non-conformist look?
Thomas Sowell
Image
Balanced budget requirements seem more likely to produce accounting ingenuity than genuinely balanced budgets.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Social values in general are incrementally variable: neither safety, diversity, rational articulation, nor morality is categorically a good thing to have more of, without limits. All are subject to diminishing returns, and ultimately negative returns.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Mystical references to society and its programs to help may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.
Thomas Sowell
Image
The minimum wage law very cleverly is misnamed. The real minimum wage is zero. That is what many inexperienced and low skilled people receive as a result of legislation that makes it illegal to pay them what they are currently worth to an employer.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Just as any moron can destroy a priceless Ming vase, so the shallow and ill-educated people who run our schools can undermine and destroy from within a great civilization that took centuries of dedicated effort to create and maintain.
Thomas Sowell