Thomas Sowell was mentioned in yesterday’s post. Today, I thought to direct you to his website. He is a national treasure.
Don’t miss the ‘favorite quotations’ page. Five examples:
“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm– but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”
—T. S. ELiot
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
—C. S. Lewis
“There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.”
—Eric Hoffer
“Nowhere at present is there such a measureless loathing of their country by educated people as in America.”
—Eric Hoffer (that was 1971, and look where we are now)
“Publicly inconsolable about the fact that racism continues, these activists seem privately terrified that it has abated.”
—Dinesh D’Souza
Here are some quotes from Sowell himself. One example:
“Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God.”
― Thomas Sowell