903 Quotes by Thomas Sowell

People who know nothing about advertising, nothing about pharmaceuticals, and nothing about economics have been loudly proclaiming that the drug companies spend too much on advertising – and demanding that the government pass laws based on their ignorance.

Those who want to “spread the wealth” almost invariably seek to concentrate the power. It happens too often, and in too many different countries around the world, to be a coincidence. Which is more dangerous, inequalities of wealth or concentrations of power?

It is truly a triumph of rhetoric over reality when people can believe that going into politics is ‘public service,’ but that producing food, shelter, transportation, or medical care is not.

People who decry the fact that businesses are in business “just to make money” seldom understand the implications of what they are saying. You make money by doing what other people want, not what you want.

Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options.

In the wake of the housing debacle in California, more people are buying less expensive homes, making bigger down payments, and staying away from ‘creative’ and risky financing. It is amazing how fast people learn when they are not insulated from the consequences of their decisions.

The great escape of our times is escape from personal responsibility for the consequences of one’s own behavior.

Any judicial nominee who has said that the Constitution means what it says, not what judges would like it to mean, is going to be called an ‘extremist.’ That person will be said to be ‘out of the mainstream.’ But the mainstream is itself the problem.

What is called ‘capitalism’ might more accurately be called consumerism. It is the consumers who call the tune, and those capitalists who want to remain capitalists have to learn to dance to it.