Frases de Thomas Sowell

“El problema no es que Johnny no sepa leer. El problema no es que Johnny no pueda pensar. El problema es que Johnny no sabe qué es pensar; lo confunde con sentir.”

“La primera lección en economía es la escasez: nunca hay suficiente de aquello para satisfacer plenamente a todos aquellos que lo desean. La primera lección de política es ignorar por completo la primera lección de economía.”

“Es asombroso cuánto pánico puede propagar un hombre honesto en una multitud de hipócritas.”

“Algunos de los casos más grandes de identidad errónea se encuentran entre los intelectuales que tienen problemas para recordar que no son Dios.”

“Gran parte de la historia social del mundo occidental en las últimas tres décadas ha estado implicada en reemplazar lo que funcionó con lo que sonaba bien. Área tras área (crimen, educación, vivienda, relaciones raciales) la situación ha empeorado tras poner en práctica las nuevas y brillantes teorías. Lo sorprendente es que esta historia de fracaso y desastre no ha desanimado a los ingenieros sociales ni a desacreditarlos.”

“Las personas que se enorgullecen de su "complejidad" y se burlan de los demás por ser "simplistas" deberían darse cuenta de que la verdad a menudo no es muy complicada. Lo que se vuelve complejo es evadir la verdad.”

“Si ha votado por políticos que prometen darle golosinas a costa de otra persona, entonces no tiene derecho a quejarse cuando le quitan su dinero y se lo dan a otra persona, incluso a ellos mismos.”

“Nada es más fácil que tener buenas intenciones. Pero cuando no se entiende cómo funciona una economía, las buenas intenciones pueden llevar a consecuencias desastrosas”

“Bajo un gobierno electo popularmente, los incentivos políticos son hacer lo que es popular, a pesar de sus posibles consecuencias negativas, o hacer algo tan popular como sea posible”

“La madurez no es cuestión de edad. Has madurado cuando ya no te importa demostrar cuán inteligente eres y prestas toda tu atención para hacer bien tu trabajo. Muchos nunca llegan a esa etapa, no importa cuán viejos sean.”

“Nunca he entendido por qué es "codicia" querer conservar el dinero que has ganado, pero no es codicia querer tomar el dinero de otra persona.”

“A pesar de una literatura voluminosa y a menudo fervorosa sobre la "distribución del ingreso", la fría realidad es que la mayoría de los ingresos no se distribuyen: se ganan.”

“El racismo no tiene un buen historial. Ha sido probado durante mucho tiempo y se podría pensar que a estas alturas ya querríamos ponerle fin en lugar de ponerlo bajo una nueva dirección.”

“Desafortunadamente, el no lo hizo, por lo que llamó por teléfono a un hospital local para enviar una ambulancia.”

“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.”

“Racism does not have a good track record. It's been tried out for a long time and you'd think by now we'd want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management.”

“It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites.”

“The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.”

“One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.”

“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.”

“Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on "income distribution," the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.”

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

“It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.”

“He died waiting for a doctor, in a building full of doctors. Nothing so dramatized for me the nature of a bureaucracy and its emphasis on procedures, rather than results.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?”

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

“Don't you get tired of seeing so many "non-conformists" with the same non-conformist look?”

“The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.”

“There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”

“Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster.”

“Although I am ready to defend what I have said, many people expect me to defend what others have attributed to me.”

“Some of the most vocal critics of the way things are being done are people who have done nothing themselves, and whose only contributions to society are their complaints and moral exhibitionism.”

“When we hear about rent control or gun control, we may think about rent or guns but the word that really matters is 'control.' That is what the political left is all about, as you can see by the incessant creation of new restrictions in places where they are strongly entrenched in power, such as San Francisco or New York.”

“Unfortunately, he was not, so a phone call was made to a local hospital to send an ambulance.”

“Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area - crime, education, housing, race relations - the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.”

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

“The fact that the market is not doing what we wish it would do is no reason to automatically assume that the government would do better.”

“Intellect is not wisdom.”

“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 "universal health care."”

“Bailing out people who made ill-advised mortgages makes no more sense that bailing out people who lost their life savings in Las Vegas casinos.”

“There are only two ways of telling the complete truth--anonymously and posthumously.”