903 Quotes by Thomas Sowell

The strongest argument for socialism is that it sounds good. The strongest argument against socialism is that it doesn’t work. But those who live by words will always have a soft spot in their hearts for socialism because it sounds so good.

The grand delusion of contemporary liberals is that they have both the right and the ability to move their fellow creatures around like blocks of wood – and that the end results will be no different than if people had voluntarily chosen the same action.

If you don’t control the borders, it doesn’t matter what immigration laws you have.

Government’s power to bully people who have broken no law is dangerous to all of us.

Money goes out first to pay expenses and then comes back as profits later – if at all. The high rate of failure of new businesses makes painfully clear that there is nothing inevitable about the money coming back.

The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people’s money away quietly, and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly.

As long as human beings are imperfect, there will always be arguments for extending the power of government to deal with these imperfections. The only logical stopping place is totalitarianism – unless we realize that tolerating imperfections is the price of freedom.

Social Engineering – The art of replacing what works with what sounds good.

Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true, but many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence.