Quotable quotes from the wonderful world of free speechers ... Part Three

This is only the first collection of several more I have collected from the writings of the  Great   Dr. Thomas Sowell:  

"If there is ever a Hall of Fame for confidence men, Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff will have to take a back seat to Barack Obama. Obama is the gold standard — or, perhaps more appropriately, the brass standard."

"No individual and no generation has had enough personal experience to ignore the vast experience of the human race that is called history. Yet most of our schools and colleges today pay little attention to history. And many of our current policies repeat mistakes that were made, time and again, in the past with disastrous results."

"Those who disdain wealth as a worthy goal for an individual or a society seem not to realize that wealth is the only thing that can prevent poverty."

"Even squirrels know enough to store nuts, so that they will have something to eat when food gets scarce. But the welfare state has spawned a whole class of people who spend everything they get when times are good, and look to others to provide for their food and other basic needs when times turn bad."

"Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as "racists." "

"With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution."

"If you believe that the end justifies the means, then you don't believe in constitutional government."

"Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power — vs. the rule of law and the preservation of freedom — are the "useful idiots" of our time. But useful to whom?"

"Immigrants who come here from around the world with every desire and intention to become Americans may be hi-jacked by those activists who are ideologically committed to keeping them speaking foreign languages, loyal to foreign values and -- if possible -- taught to feel historic grievances against the country that is welcoming them today."

On Affirmative Action:
"People differ - and have for centuries.... Any 'temporary' policy whose duration is defined by the goal of achieving something that has never been achieved before, anywhere in the world, could more fittingly be characterized as eternal."

On the Clintons during the Monica scandal:
"No one who really cares about this country wants to see it torn apart by the impeachment of any president. By the same token, no one who cares about humanity really wants to see a war, but we have had to fight wars to protect ourselves and our country.
Today, it is considered clever to shrug at abuses of power and say, "Everybody does it." Because of the struggles and sacrifices of generations who went before us, everybody in America does not do it.
But history shows that everybody will do it if you let them get away with it."

"The vocabulary of the political left is fascinating. For example, it is considered to be "materialistic" and "greedy" to want to keep what you have earned. But it is "idealistic" to want to take away what someone else has earned and spend it for your own political benefit or to feel good about yourself."

"The pretense of having solutions can be more dangerous than the problem. Yet there are whole armies of shrinks and social workers, whose jobs depend on pretending that they have answers, even when no one has answers."

On Obama's policies in 2010:
"In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.
The president's poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies.
Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere."

"There seems to be something "liberating" about ignorance — especially when you don't even know enough to realize how little you know."

"The great ideological divide is between those who believe that theories should be adjusted to reality and those who believe that reality must be adjusted to fit their theories. Many of the horrors of the 20th century were created by the latter. And such people are still with us, in many movements."

"If you don't like growing older, don't worry about it. You may not be growing older much longer."

All the above are obtained from various articles of  Dr.Sowell here.  Each and every article written by Dr.Sowell is thought-provoking.