The murder of a dozen innocent people is unquestionably a human tragedy. But that is no excuse for reacting blindly by preventing hundreds of thousands of other people from defending themselves against meeting the same fate. Thomas Sowell More Quotes by Thomas Sowell More Quotes From Thomas Sowell You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization - including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility, and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain - without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large. Thomas Sowell colorresponsibilityclever Ideological bigotry has become the norm on even our most prestigious campuses, where students can go for years without reading or hearing anything that challenges the left vision. Thomas Sowell readingchallengesyears Racism does not have a good track record. It's been tried out for a long time and you'd think by now we'd want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management. Thomas Sowell racismlongthinking For society as a whole, nothing comes as a "right" to which we are "entitled." Even bare subsistence has to be produced-and produced at a cost of heavy toil for much of human history. The only way anyone can have a right to something that has to be produced is to force someone else to produce it for him. The more things are provided as rights, the less the recipients have to work and the more others have to carry their load. Thomas Sowell historicalrightswork How you treat the helpless is the real test of morality. Lots of people are flunking that test big time. Thomas Sowell realwarpeople You may have the right to live anyway you like, but you don't have a right to have other people like it. Respect it or pay for it. Thomas Sowell maypaypeople Policies are judged by their consequences but crusades are judged by how good they make the crusaders feel. Thomas Sowell atheismcrusadesfeels Like other magicians, Obama has chosen his distractions well. The insurance industry is currently his favorite distraction as scapegoats, after he has tried to demonize doctors without much success . . . . Obama even gets away with saying things like having a system to 'keep insurance companies honest' - and many people may not see the painful irony in politicians trying to keep other people honest. Thomas Sowell doctorstryingpeople You can only confiscate the wealth that exists at a given moment. You cannot confiscate future wealth - and that future wealth is less likely to be produced when people see that it is going to be confiscated. Thomas Sowell politicalphilosophypeople Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric. Thomas Sowell agonycostblood In the long run, the greatest weapon of mass destruction is stupidity. Thomas Sowell mass-destructionrunninglong The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves. You can talk about 'social justice' all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get re-elected. That is not social justice or any other kind of justice. Thomas Sowell deserve-youorderhands It is so easy to be wrong-and to persist in being wrong-when the costs of being wrong are paid by others. Thomas Sowell persistcosteasy In liberal logic, if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians, to spend in ways that will increase their chances of getting reelected. Thomas Sowell moneyanswersway We need laws written by people who have confronted life in the real world, not in the sheltered world of trust fund recipients of the insulated cocoon of academia. Thomas Sowell reallawpeople An independent judiciary does not mean judges independent of the Constitution from which they derive their power or independent of the laws that they are sworn to uphold. Thomas Sowell independentlawmean If politicians were serious about day care for children, instead of just sloganizing about it, nothing they could do would improve the quality of child care more than by lifting the heavy burden of taxation that forces so many families to have both parents working. Thomas Sowell day-careparentchildren One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them. Thomas Sowell trustfailurepeople People who think that they are being 'exploited' should ask themselves whether they would be missed if they left, or whether people would say: 'Good riddance?' Thomas Sowell would-bepeoplethinking Although much of the media have their antennae out to pick up anything that might be construed as racism against blacks, they resolutely ignore even the most blatant racism by blacks against others. Thomas Sowell mediaracismmight
