Thomas Sowell Quotes

Enthusiasm could not supply the place of experience.

I have a great amount of enthusiasm, and I am a man who knows how to do this job inside out because of the experience I've gained over the years.

Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.

Select a subject that interests you and make an effort to become an expert in that field. I promise you, if you make the effort, and you become an expert, you will have a wonderful career.

The presence of a body of well-instructed men...is important to a degree which cannot be overestimated.

We all know a lot about something. We all have a passion about something.

I'm a student of the game.

I'm probably not as good in the topics that I'm less passionate about than the ones I spend all my time on.

If you're going to make comments on economy, study economy. If you're gonna make comments on world history, make sure you learn world history. If you're gonna save lives and be a doctor, you need to study medicine. Then, you will be able to make comments on economy, on medicine, and on world history.

A cop told me, a long time ago, that there’s no substitute for knowing what you’re doing. Most of us scribblers do not. The ones that’re any good are aware of this. The rest write silly stuff. The trouble is this: The readers know it.

Why isn't someone smarter than us doing this?

I tell the truth. And I know what I'm talking about. That's why I'm a threat.

Knowledge, or verbal facility, is no proof that you know what you're talking about.

Don't get roped into talking about something that you don't really have passion for, and don't get roped into something you don't have expertise in. Why should somebody listen to you? If you're going to take somebody's time, you better deliver.

Ballin's not a hobby, it's my occupation

He believed in the primacy of doubt, not as a blemish upon our ability to know, but as the essence of knowing.

The body must be credited with an immense fund of know-how.

It's always great when you want scientific fact to get a really good science fiction writer to talk to you about it.

I teach at Georgetown, and I see that the students have so many different interests. The main thing is to match your passion with your knowledge, because you can't just be passionate without knowing the facts, and facts are really boring without passion.

Knowledge must become capability.

Activism is something that no one can fake. You get angry. You cry. But you never throw in your towel, because that anger is what is propelling you to further action.

I have a great affection for people who are intellectually engaged with the world, and who don't treat everything superficially. And I think, when people talk about nerdiness, what they're really talking about is smart people who who are trying to think hard about the world. And I don't think that's an insult, I think that's a great thing.

The specialist is one who never makes small mistakes while moving toward the grand fallacy.

If you have competence, you pretty much know its boundaries already. To ask the question (of whether you are past the boundary) is to answer it.

Timidity betrays want of powers, and audacity a want of skill. There are, indeed, two things, knowledge and opinion, of which the one makes its possessor really to know, the other to be ignorant.