Thomas Sowell On Intellectuals Quotes & Sayings

Most intellectuals outside the field of economics show remarkably little interest in learning even the basic fundamentals of economics. Yet they do not hesitate to make sweeping pronouncements about the economy in general, businesses in particular, and the many issues revolving around what is called 'income distribution'. — Thomas Sowell

Where intellectuals have played a role in history, it has not been so much by whispering words of advice into the ears of political overlords as by contributing to the vast and powerful currents of conceptions and misconceptions that sweep human action along. — Thomas Sowell

It may be expecting too much to expect most intellectuals to have common sense, when their whole life is based on their being uncommon
that is, saying things that are different from what everyone else is saying. There is only so much genuine originality in anyone. After that, being uncommon means indulging in pointless eccentricities or clever attempts to mock or shock. — Thomas Sowell

(Terrorists) are planning to disrupt our democratic process. It's scary I know, but we're not going to let al Qaeda tell us what to do. In fact, our government has decided that if al Qaeda attempts to disrupt our democratic process, we are going to respond by disrupting it first. — Jon Stewart

In film, you can't go into analytical explorations because the audience will reject that. — Manuel Puig

Some of the biggest cases of mistaken identity are among intellectuals who have trouble remembering that they are not God. — Thomas Sowell

Let's face it, most of us are not half as smart as we may sometimes think we are
and for intellectuals, not one-tenth as smart. — Thomas Sowell

During the 1930s, some of the leading intellectuals in America condemned our economic system and pointed to the centrally planned Soviet economy as a model
all this at a time when literally millions of people were starving to death in the Soviet Union, from a famine in a country with some of the richest farmland in Europe and historically a large exporter of food. — Thomas Sowell

Intellectuals may like to think of themselves as people who "speak truth to power" but too often they are people who speak lies to gain power. — Thomas Sowell

Someone once defined a social problem as a situation in which the real world differs from the theories of intellectuals. To the intelligentsia, it follows, as the night follows the day, that it is the real world that is wrong and which needs to change. — Thomas Sowell

Nothing could be more jolting and discordant with the vision of today's intellectuals than the fact that it was businessmen, devout religious leaders and Western imperialists who together destroyed slavery around the world. And if it doesn't fit their vision, it is the same to them as if it never happened. — Thomas Sowell

You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again. — Tom Waits

Thatcherite economic policy was most acutely felt in the coal industry, where tens of thousands of jobs were lost as pits were shut down. — John Burnside

The only weights I lift are my dogs. — Olivia Newton-John

[beware that] many of what are called social problems are differences between the theories of intellectuals and the realities of the world - differences which many intellectuals interpret to mean that it is the real world that is wrong and needs changing. — Thomas Sowell

We will never achieve freedom - not until the very end - but the fight can be so beautiful. — Kim Fielding

Intellect is not wisdom. — Thomas Sowell

Because many of us make mistakes that can have bad consequences, some intellectuals believe that it is the role of government to intervene and make some of our decisions for us. From what galaxy government is going to hire creatures who do not make mistakes is a question they leave unanswered. — Thomas Sowell

The stricter standards and independent, often conclusive, evidence in the physical sciences cannot be generalized to intellectual activity as a whole, even though the aura of scientific processes and results is often appropriated by other intellectuals. — Thomas Sowell