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Maybe I'm overly pessimistic, but most of Africa is a continent without much hope for its people... What [Africa] needs, the West cannot give. ...what Africans need is personal liberty...[and] guarantees of private property rights and rule of law.

Walter E. Williams

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Walter E. Williams
Age: 84 †
Born: 1936
Born: March 31
Died: 2020
Died: December 1
Columnist
Economist
Journalist
Radio Personality
University Teacher
Philadelphia
Pennsylvania
Walter Williams
Walter Edward Williams
Much
Law
Private
People
Hope
Rule
Africans
Cannot
Property
Overly
Give
West
Pessimistic
Without
Personal
Continent
Need
Liberty
Continents
Giving
Maybe
Guarantees
Needs
Rights
Africa

More quotes by Walter E. Williams

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The freedom of individuals from compulsion or coercion never was, and is not now, the normal state of human affairs. The normal state for the ordinary person is tyranny, arbitrary control and abuse mainly by their own government.
Walter E. Williams
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The essence of government is force, and most often that force is used to accomplish evil ends.
Walter E. Williams
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Democracy gives the aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be considered tyranny.
Walter E. Williams
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Students who are alien and hostile to the education process ought to be removed. You say, What will we do with them? I say that's a secondary issue. The first priority is to stop thugs from making education impossible for everyone else.
Walter E. Williams
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Preaching doom and gloom has been beneficial to the political class. They use it to gain more power and control.
Walter E. Williams
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The global warming scare has provided a field day for politicians and others who wish to control our lives. After all, only the imagination limits the kind of laws and restrictions that can be written in the name of saving the planet.
Walter E. Williams
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In keeping Americans ill-educated, ill-informed and constitutionally ignorant, the education establishment has been the politician's major and most faithful partner. It is in this sense that American education can be deemed a success.
Walter E. Williams
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The crucial question for any policy is not what, are its intentions, but what are its effects?
Walter E. Williams
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More important than anything else is for Americans to wise up to class warfare demagoguery and reject the politics of envy.
Walter E. Williams
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Socialism is just another form of tyranny.
Walter E. Williams
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When it came to the 2000 election, 84 percent of Ivy League faculty voted for Al Gore, 6 percent for Ralph Nader and 9 percent for George Bush. In the general electorate, the vote was split at 48 percent for Gore and Bush, and 3 percent for Nader.
Walter E. Williams
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I have nothing against rich people. In fact, I've been struggling most of my life to join them.
Walter E. Williams
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Trying to get government to be as efficient as business is as hopeless as trying to teach cats to bark and dogs to meow.
Walter E. Williams
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If one person has a right to something he did not earn, of necessity it requires that another person not have a right to something that he did earn.
Walter E. Williams
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Politicians have immense power to do harm to the economy. But they have very little power to do good.
Walter E. Williams
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The public good is promoted best by people pursuing their own private interests. This bothers some people because they're more concerned with motives than with results.
Walter E. Williams
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If we buy into the notion that somehow property rights are less important, or are in conflict with, human or civil rights, we give the socialists a freer hand to attack our property.
Walter E. Williams
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Powerful government tends to draw into it people with bloated egos, people who think they know more than everyone else and have little hesitance in coercing their fellow man. Or as Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek said, in government, the scum rises to the top.
Walter E. Williams
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Charity is reaching into one's own pockets to assist his fellow man in need. Reaching into someone else's pocket to assist one's fellow man hardly qualifies as charity. When done privately, we deem it theft, and the individual risks jail time.
Walter E. Williams
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In general, presidents and congressmen have very limited power to do good for the economy and awesome power to do bad. The best good thing that politicians can do for the economy is to stop doing bad. In part, this can be achieved through reducing taxes and economic regulation, and staying out of our lives.
Walter E. Williams