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Few of the great tragedies of history were created by the village idiot, and many by the village genius.

— Thomas Sowell

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Intelligence

More quotes by Thomas Sowell

Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.

Knowledge and Decisions (1980)

If there is one thing that is bipartisan in Washington, it is brazen hypocrisy.

Ideas are everywhere, but knowledge is rare.

Knowledge and Decisions (1980)

The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.

Racism has never done this country any good, and it needs to be fought against, not put under new management for different groups.

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Each of these private teachers who work for pay ... inculcates nothing else than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom.

Socrates

Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël De l’Allemagne [Germany (1813)

Like every 'intellectual', a philosophy teacher is a petty bourgeois. When he opens his mouth, it is petty-bourgeois ideology that speaks: its resources and ruses are infinite.

Louis Althusser Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (1968)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Sowell (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.