Thomas Sowell

Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare.

Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare.

Implicit in the activist conception of government is the assumption that you can take the good things in a complex read more

Implicit in the activist conception of government is the assumption that you can take the good things in a complex system for granted, and just improve the things that are not so good. What is lacking in this conception is any sense that a society, an institution, or even a single human being, is an intricate system of fragile inter-relationships, whose complexities are little understood and easily destabilized.

Considering the enormous range of human knowledge, from intimate personal knowledge of specific individuals to the complexities of organizations and read more

Considering the enormous range of human knowledge, from intimate personal knowledge of specific individuals to the complexities of organizations and the subtleties of feelings, it is remarkable that one speck in this firmament should be the sole determinant of whether someone is considered knowledgeable or ignorant in general. Yet it is a fact of life that an unlettered person is considered ignorant, however much he may know about nature and man, and a Ph.D. is never considered ignorant, however barren his mind might be outside his narrow specialty and however little he grasps about human feeling or social complexities.

The demands of unbounded individualism need to be weighed in the light of inherent social constraints which can only change read more

The demands of unbounded individualism need to be weighed in the light of inherent social constraints which can only change their form but cannot be eliminated without eliminating civilization.

Force is the antithesis of freedom, but force must be used, if only to defend against other force.

Force is the antithesis of freedom, but force must be used, if only to defend against other force.