Quote

Much of the self-righteous nonsense that abounds on so many subjects cannot stand up to three questions: (1) Compared to what? (2) At what cost? and (3) What are the hard facts?.

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
Three
Righteous
Cannot
Compared
Self
Nonsense
Many
Questions
Hard
Subjects
Much
Cost
Stand
Facts
Abounds

More quotes by 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
A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.
Thomas Sowell
Image
If you can't beat them or join them, then do something weird. No matter how much the passengers eat, the weight of the plane stays the same. Do you sometimes feel that you are necessary but not sufficient?
Thomas Sowell
Image
Those government officials who want more power are not going to stop unless they get stopped.
Thomas Sowell
Image
What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?
Thomas Sowell
Image
Too many policies, programs and institutions are judged by what they are supposed to do, rather than by what they actually do and the consequences of their actions.
Thomas Sowell
Image
'Global warming' is just the latest in a long line of hysterical crusades to which we seem to be increasingly susceptible.
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
Creating whole departments of ethnic, gender, and other 'studies' was part of the price of academic peace. All too often, these 'studies' are about propaganda rather than serious education.
Thomas Sowell
Image
If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.
Thomas Sowell
Image
When you start off by telling those who disagree with you that they are not merely in error but in sin, how much of a dialogue do you expect?
Thomas Sowell
Image
However widespread the desire to be free, that is wholly different from a desire to live in a society where others are free.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Hilary Clinton said you know, it takes a village to raise a child and somebody said it takes a village idiot to believe that … it is part of the whole thing of third parties wanting to make decisions for which they pay no price for when they’re wrong.
Thomas Sowell
Image
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.
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
The curse of the intelligentsia is their ability to rationalize and re-define. Ordinary people, lacking that gift, are forced to face reality.
Thomas Sowell
Image
People who know nothing about advertising, nothing about pharmaceuticals, and nothing about economics have been loudly proclaiming that the drug companies spend too much on advertising - and demanding that the government pass laws based on their ignorance.
Thomas Sowell
Image
What is especially disturbing about the political left is that they seem to have no sense of the tragedy of the human condition. Instead, they tend to see the problems of the world as due to other people not being as wise or as noble as themselves.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Government central planning means over-riding other people's plans.
Thomas Sowell