20 phrases by Thomas Sowell that address social issues

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

Much of the social history of the Western world over the last three decades has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounds good.

What is called an educated person is usually someone who has had dangerously shallow exposure to a wide spectrum of subjects.

While the left’s big word is “compassion,” the left’s big agenda is dependency.

All the political angst and moral melodrama of making “the rich” pay “their fair share” is part of one big farce. It’s not economics, it’s politics.

Education is not only neglected in many of our schools today, but is largely replaced by ideological indoctrination.

Competition does a much more efficient job of protecting consumers than the government.

Errors can be corrected by those who observe the facts, but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are attached to a vision.

The fact that so many successful politicians are shameless liars is not just a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.

The most basic question is not what is best for everyone, but who should decide what is best.

It’s hard to imagine a stupider or more dangerous way to make decisions than putting them in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

Intellectuals give people who are already disadvantaged by poverty another disadvantage: that they are victims.

Freedom cost a lot of blood and suffering to be renounced for such cheap rhetoric.

It is amazing how much panic an honest man can spread among a crowd of hypocrites.

The welfare state is the oldest cheating in the world. First you take the people’s money silently and then you return some of it to the people extravagantly.

Socialism has such a blatant history of flaws that only an intellectual can evade or ignore them.

The first lesson in economics is scarcity: there is never enough to fully satisfy everyone who wants it. The first policy lesson is to disregard the first economics lesson.

The real minimum wage is zero.

Rhetoric does not replace reality.

The facts do not speak for themselves. They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities.