Quote

Organizational progress parallels that in science and technology, permitting ultimate simplicity through intermediate complexity.

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
Society
Intermediate
Science
Organizational
Parallels
Complexity
Simplicity
Ultimate
Progress
Technology
Permitting

More quotes by Thomas Sowell

Image
There are only two economists in Congress and hundreds of lawyers. Does that explain why the government is in such a mess?
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 simplest and most psychologically satisfying explanation of any observed phenomenon is that it happened that way because someone wanted it to happen that way.
Thomas Sowell
Image
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.'
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
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
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
Image
Anyone who does not understand the utter cynicism of politics does not understand politics.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Too many people in Washington are full of themselves, among other things that they are full of.
Thomas Sowell
Image
What makes it possible for politicians to do so many things that are economically counterproductive is that neither the public nor the media know enough of the basics to understand what's wrong with what they're saying.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions - and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business. Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large.
Thomas Sowell
Image
There is no talent so ardently supported, nor generously rewarded, as the ability to convince parasites they are victims.
Thomas Sowell
Image
The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Too many people - some of them judges - seem to think that freedom of speech means freedom from consequences for what you have said. If you believe that, try insulting your boss when you go to work tomorrow. Better yet, try insulting your spouse before going to bed tonight.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Government's power to bully people who have broken no law is dangerous to all of us.
Thomas Sowell
Image
One of the most fashionable notions of our times is that social problems like poverty and oppression breed wars. Most wars, however, are started by well-fed people with the time on their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or imagined grievances.
Thomas Sowell
Image
If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves
Thomas Sowell
Image
No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems - of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.
Thomas Sowell
Image
If you believe in equal rights, then what do “women’s rights,” “gay rights,” etc., mean? Either they are redundant or they are violations of the principle of equal rights for all.
Thomas Sowell
Image
What all these lofty and vague phrases boil down to is that the court can impose things that the voters don't want and the Constitution does not require, but which are in vogue in circles to which the court responds.
Thomas Sowell