Quote of the Day: 19 February 2026 #QotD

“Everything fails by irrelevant standards.” -Thomas Sowell
[It is important to use the right measures as you seek to quantify things. If you end up measuring your ability to run fast when what you care about is your ability to think you'll get some very odd ideas about your abilities.]

Quote of the Day: 12 January 2026 #QotD

“There cannot be a law-abiding society if no one knows in advance what law they are to abide by, but must wait for judges to create ex post facto legal rulings based on ‘evolving standards’ rather than known rules.” -Thomas Sowell
[Order, trust, and cohesion all require that we are able to reliably predict what the outcomes of our actions will be. If there is tremendous uncertainty we cannot have a functioning society.]

Quote of the Day: 4 December 2025 #QotD

“The prevailing vision of our era is long overdue for a critical re-examination—or, for many, a first examination.” -Thomas Sowell
[It is always worthwhile to have explored the bases for your thinking. And to abandon any that don't hold up to scrutiny.]

Quote of the Day: 27 October 2025 #QotD

“The family is inherently an obstacle to schemes for central control of social processes.” -Thomas Sowell
[That it is also the source of man's greatest joys is just a further commendation of the family as an institution. Not that it needed more to recommend it to us.]

Quote of the Day: 15 August 2025 #QotD

“Because of reciprocal inequalities, the more narrowly defined the endeavor, the less likely are different groups to be comparably represented. Yet crusaders for social justice often decry uneven representation of groups in an individual company, as evidence or proof of employer discrimination in that particular company.” -Thomas Sowell
[Statistics working as they do, it is impossible for people to appear entirely bias free without actually applying biases to the processes.]

Quote of the Day: 14 July 2025 #QotD

“[I]t is so easy to be wrong—and to persist in being wrong—when the costs of being wrong are paid by others.” -Thomas Sowell
[So, this is true. And I've got little to say about it.]

Quote of the Day: 12 June 2025 #QotD

“People are never more sincere than when they assume their own moral superiority.” -Thomas Sowell
[Of course, no one wants to think they might be wrong. And about moral issues it is even more pronounced.]

Quote of the Day: 13 March 2025 #QotD

“But human vices have no monopoly as causes of economic and other disparities.” -Thomas Sowell
[Though, they do have an effect. But it would be stupid to say that they are the only thing that has an effect.]

Quote of the Day: 12 February 2025 #QotD

“[N]o community of any race is made better off with many adolescent males hanging around with nothing useful to do.” -Thomas Sowell
[For one thing, they're too prone to do stupid things, and too creative in what those dumb things might be. For another, they go around with a whole bunch of pent-up aggression.]

Quote of the Day: 15 January 2025 #QotD

“The confiscation and redistribution of wealth—whether on a moderate or a comprehensive scale—is at the heart of the social justice agenda. While social justice advocates stress what they see as the desirability of such policies, the feasibility of those policies tends to receive far less attention, and the consequences of trying and failing often receive virtually no attention.” -Thomas Sowell
[Probably because the consequences are largely unimportant to those who would like to implement the policies. They're more interested in the emotional catharsis of getting the policy passed.]

Quote of the Day: 23 November 2024 #QotD

“Not all differences between races are due to race—either in the sense of genetics or in the sense of racial discrimination.” -Thomas Sowell
[But there's too much money being made from convincing people of the opposite. So, it will persist despite the flaws.]

Quote of the Day: 7 October 2024 #QotD

“The history of totalitarian dictatorships that arose in the twentieth century, and were responsible for the deaths of millions of their own people in peacetime, should be an urgent warning against putting too much power in the hands of any human beings.” -Thomas Sowell
[I truly want a government with so little power I don't have to think about it that much. It's rather annoying how willing everyone seems to grant additional powers whenever they want to accomplish a particular policy outcome.]

Quote of the Day: 14 September 2024 #QotD

“Neither social justice advocates nor anyone else can safely proceed on the assumption that the particular laws and policies they prefer will automatically have the results they expect, without taking into account how the people on whom these laws and policies are imposed will react.” -Thomas Sowell
[Second order effects and the law of unintended consequences always rear their ugly heads. Things are going to happen that you either don't want to happen, or didn't think would happen.]

Quote of the Day: 24 August 2024 #QotD

“We might agree that ‘equal chances for all’ would be desirable. But that in no way guarantees that we have either the knowledge or the power required to make that goal attainable, without ruinous sacrifices of other desirable goals, ranging from freedom to survival.” -Thomas Sowell
[That hasn't seemed to stop a lot of people from attempting to impose it anyway. So, we have to resist the efforts to impose these things upon us.]

Quote of the Day: 3 August 2024 #QotD

 

“It is especially difficult to make the case that inequalities of outcomes can be automatically assumed to have been caused by discrimination by dominant majorities against subordinate minorities, when in fact many subordinate minorities have economically outperformed dominant majorities in many countries around the world and in many periods of history.” -Thomas Sowell

[But facts like this are conveniently overlooked for the benefit of certain politicians and political parties.]

Quote of the Day: 13 July 2024 #QotD

“[P]eople from different backgrounds do not necessarily even want to do the same things, much less invest their time and energies into developing the same kinds of skills and talents.” -Thomas Sowell
[But there are plenty of people who are sure that they have a better understanding and should be able to substitute their own judgment in place of the people involved in these decisions.]

Quote of the Day: 22 June 2024 #QotD

“Knowledge, however, does not exist in a simple hierarchy, with the kind of special knowledge taught in schools and colleges at the top, and more mundane knowledge at the bottom.” -Thomas Sowell
[No matter how much some people may think so.]

Quote of the Day: 1 June 2024 #QotD

“[C]leverness is not wisdom, and artful insinuations are no substitute for factual evidence, if your goal is knowing the facts.” -Thomas Sowell
[If that isn't your goal, however, then wisdom and facts may not be useful, or potentially even detrimental to your purposes.]

Quote of the Day: 25 April 2024 #QotD

“It is hard to think of any power exercised by human beings over other human beings that has not been abused.” -Thomas Sowell
[I'm not aware of any, but I haven't really gone looking for one either.]

Quote of the Day: 9 April 2024 #QotD

“The advantages that some people have, in a given endeavor, are not just disadvantages to everyone else. These advantages also benefit all the people who pay for the product or service provided by that endeavor.” -Thomas Sowell
[Otherwise known as learning not to cut off your nose to spite your face.]