Thomas Sowell · 224 pages
Rating: (762 votes)
“A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.9”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from The Quest for Cosmic Justice
“As history has also shown, especially in the twentieth century, one of the first things an ideologue will do after achieving absolute power is kill.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from The Quest for Cosmic Justice
“Justice at all costs' is not justice.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from The Quest for Cosmic Justice
“More to the point, if he did cancel the tour in order to fight that tax, would we regard him as a rational man of high principle or as a doctrinaire, a moral exhibitionist, or an egomaniac”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from The Quest for Cosmic Justice
“Pascal was even convinced that he could use his theories to justify a belief in God. He stated that ‘the excitement that a gambler feels when making a bet is equal to the amount he might win multiplied by the probability of winning it’. He then argued that the possible prize of eternal happiness has an infinite value and that the probability of entering heaven by leading a virtuous life, no matter how small, is certainly finite. Therefore, according to Pascal’s definition, religion was a game of infinite excitement and one worth playing, because multiplying an infinite prize by a finite probability results in infinity.”
― Simon Singh, quote from Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem
“Maybe a hundred years ago our people should have run away from this place, I said...
And then run from the next place and the next place and the place after that? You run once, what makes you think you won't have to run all the rest of your life?... We love moment to moment... Everything changes. One minute we are part of the river, and the next we are joined with the sea.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Incantation
“Kingship wrought of Infinite worship,
Quick-forged by the Swift Sure Hand;
Bold in Righteousness,
Valiant in Justice,
A sword of honor to defend the clans of Albion!”
― Stephen R. Lawhead, quote from The Paradise War
“Just about everything you learned in school about life is wrong, but the wrongest thing might very well be this: Being well rounded is the secret to success.”
― Seth Godin, quote from The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
“Maybe if everything was beautiful, nothing would be.
People saw one thing, they swooned over it. They saw this other thing, they pounded it with sticks.
Maybe there had to be variety for life to work. Swoon over everything, you get bored. Beat everything with a stick-boring.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Dead and Alive
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