Quote

People used to complain about 'the idle rich.' But the idle rich did not do the kind of harm being done by today's busybody rich, who feed their own egos by bankrolling political crusades on the left which hurt the very people that the left claims to care about -- working people, minorities, and children.

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
Done
Hurt
Complain
Children
Rich
Idle
Kind
Working
Minorities
People
Left
Feed
Political
Complaining
Used
Ego
Busybodies
Care
Harm
Egos
Today
Claims
Crusades

More quotes by Thomas Sowell

Image
No matter how disastrously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: 'But what would you replace it with?' When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with?
Thomas Sowell
Image
Some of the people on death row today might not be there if the courts had not been so lenient on them when they were first offenders.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Much of the world today, including the United States, is still living in the social, cultural, and political aftermath of Britain's cultural achievements, its industrial revolution, its government of checks and balances, and its conquests around the world.
Thomas Sowell
Image
An inmate in a Florida prison wrote to agree with me on the availability of guns, saying that a 'criminal can and will get a stolen gun faster than you can get your car washed.' He also points out that many criminals prefer guns gotten illegally, since they will be harder to trace.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Those who want to spread the wealth almost invariably seek to concentrate the power. It happens too often, and in too many different countries around the world, to be a coincidence. Which is more dangerous, inequalities of wealth or concentrations of power?
Thomas Sowell
Image
More than half of all people filing income tax forms use someone else to prepare the forms for them. Then they have to sign under penalty of perjury that these forms are correct. But if they were competent to determine that, why would they have to pay someone else to do their taxes for them in the first place?
Thomas Sowell
Image
Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Anyone who has actually had to take responsibility for consequences by running any kind of enterprise whether economic or academic, or even just managing a sports team is likely at some point to be chastened by either the setbacks brought on by his own mistakes or by seeing his successes followed by negative consequences that he never anticipated.
Thomas Sowell
Image
'Fair' is one of the most dangerous concepts in politics. Since no two people are likely to agree on what is 'fair,' this means that there must be some third party with power - the government - to impose its will. The road to despotism is paved with 'fairness'.
Thomas Sowell
Image
No society ever thrived because it had a large and growing class of parasites living off those who produce.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Too much of what is called 'education' is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on income distribution, the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.
Thomas Sowell
Image
How long do politicians have to keep on promising heaven and delivering hell before people catch on and stop getting swept away by rhetoric?
Thomas Sowell
Image
Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?
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
Whether as a radical student, a community organizer or a far left politician, Barack Obama's ideology has been based on a vision of the Haves versus the Have Nots. . .Obama's ideology is an ideology of envy, resentment, and payback.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Organizational progress parallels that in science and technology, permitting ultimate simplicity through intermediate complexity.
Thomas Sowell
Image
If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.
Thomas Sowell
Image
Any politician who can be elected only by turning Americans against other Americans is too dangerous to be elected.
Thomas Sowell
Image
If you don't believe in the innate unreasonableness of human beings, just try raising children.
Thomas Sowell