Thomas Sowell Quotes

The only thing simple about the past is that it's not now.

To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks.

Remember that the greatest fool in the world may ask more than the wisest man can answer.

It always takes awfully long time to understand unbelievably simple things.

Why does everyone have to pretend to be stupid and not know long words?

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.

The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript.

We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.

The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him.

It is well for the heart to be naive and the mind not to be.

I know of no time in human history where ignorance was better than knowledge.

Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance.

When it comes to comedy, it might be interesting to know why an airplane works, but really? Maybe it's better not to know why certain things work. Just fly the thing, and if nothing falls apart, you'll be fine.

In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

The will to label will always prevail over what's being labeled, usually at the expense of either truth or understanding.

Understanding reduces the greatest to simplicity, and lack of its causes the least to take on the magnitude.

My first popular book, 'A Brief History of Time,' aroused a great deal of interest, but many found it difficult to understand.

If you are sure you understand everything that is going on, you are hopelessly confused.

Those who understand only what can be explained understand very little.

Vulgarized knowledge characteristically gives birth to a feeling that everything is understandable and explained. It is like a system of bridges built over chasms. One can travel boldly ahead over these bridges, ignoring the chasms. It is forbidden to look down into them; but that, alas, does not alter the fact that they exist.

Whoever believes he knows why everything is as it is has hold of nothing.

Why should things be easy to understand?

Sometimes it's easier to understand things than it is to figure them out

The things best to know are first principles and causes, but these things are perhaps the most difficult for men to grasp, for they are farthest removed from the senses.