THOMAS SOWELL

"A society in which such decisions can only be made by males has thrown away half of its knowledge, talents, and insights."

"Extrapolations are the last refuge of a groundless argument."

"Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God."

"For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before."

"No government of the left has done as much for the poor as capitalism has. Even when it comes to the redistribution of income, the left talks the talk but the free market walks the walk."

"The government is indeed an institution, but "the market" is nothing more than an option for each individual to chose among numerous existing institutions, or to fashion new arrangements suited to his own situation and taste."

"It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it."

"Whenever someone refers to me as someone "who happens to be black," I wonder if they realize that both my parents are black. If I had turned out to be Scandinavian or Chinese, people would have wondered what was going on."

"Socialism is a wonderful idea. It is only as a reality that it has been disastrous."

"Many on the political left are so entranced by the beauty of their vision that they cannot see the ugly reality they are creating in the real world."

"The only people I truly envy are those who can play a musical instrument and those who can eat anything they want without gaining weight."

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."

"The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best."

"If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves."

"Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric."

"Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers."

"Virtually no idea is too ridiculous to be accepted, even by very intelligent and highly educated people, if it provides a way for them to feel special and important. Some confuse that feeling with idealism."

"In short, numbers are accepted as evidence when they agree with preconceptions, but not when they don’t."

"People who pride themselves on their "complexity" and deride others for being "simplistic" should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth."

"What then is the intellectual advantage of civilization over primitive savagery? It is not necessarily that each civilized man has more knowledge but that he requires far less."

"People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything."

"I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money."