Thomas Sowell

The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders. Such leaders have too many incentives to promote polarizing attitudes and actions that are counterproductive for minorities and disastrous for the country.

The biggest and most deadly 'tax' rate on the poor comes from a loss of various welfare state benefits - food stamps, housing subsidies and the like - if their income goes up.

Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated.

All the political angst and moral melodrama about getting 'the rich' to pay 'their fair share' is part of a big charade. This is not about economics, it is about politics.

Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don't need to imagine it. It's called the United States of America.

Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more.

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

It is a way to take people's wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes. Inflation is the most universal tax of all.

Few professors would dare to publish research or teach a course debunking the claims made in various ethnic, gender, or other 'studies' courses.

Being willing to donate the taxpayers' money is not the same as being willing to put your own money where your mouth is.

Our schools and colleges are turning out people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.

A shortage is a sign that somebody is keeping the price artificially lower than it would be if supply and demand were allowed to operate freely.

Groups that rose from poverty to prosperity seldom did so by having their own racial or ethnic leaders to follow.

If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.

People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.

One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

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

If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.