Top 10 Thomas Sowell Quotes
Provocative takes on some of the most important issues of our time
This is the latest installment in my quotes collection series. Check out the full collection here.
Thomas Sowell is an American economist and social commentator, and one of the most influential Black scholars of the last century. A prolific and provocative writer, Sowell has a unique ability to distil complex ideas into punchy, easily digestible aphorisms. To put it more plainly, he’s extremely quotable. Here, then, are my Top 10 quotable quotes from the great Thomas Sowell.
“It is amazing how many people think that they can answer an argument by attributing bad motives to those who disagree with them. Using this kind of reasoning, you can believe or not believe anything about anything, without having to bother to deal with facts or logic.”
“Journalists cannot serve two masters. To the extent that they take on the task of suppressing information or biting their tongue for the sake of some political agenda, they are betraying the trust of the public and corrupting their own profession.”
“People who refuse to accept unpleasant truths have no right to complain about politicians who lie to them. What other kind of candidates would such people elect?”
“A society that puts equality - in the sense of equality of outcome - ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.”
“What ‘multiculturalism’ boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture - and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture.”
“The history of the 20th century is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty.”
“If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today.”
“Slavery has existed all over the planet for thousands of years, with black, white, yellow and other races being both slaves and enslavers. Does that mean that everybody ought to apologize to everybody else for what their ancestors did?”
“The average white student would have been wiped out at Cornell. But the average white student was unlikely to be admitted to Cornell, in the first place. Nor was a white student who scored at the 75th percentile. That was a ‘favor’ reserved for black students. This ‘favor’ turned black students who would have been successful at most American colleges and universities into failures at Cornell.”
“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”
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Have to add his classic:
The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.
Truly, truly a great man. I think my favourite anecdote concerning him was the obviously uninitiated third grade academic from a British university who wrote a review of one of his books (this is relatively recently) and concluded that 'this is all easy for a rich white man to say.'
He has also spoken of his Marxist youth and was asked by Peter Robinson on a podcast what changed his mind. Quick as a flash (at the age of 87 or something) he said 'facts.'