Thomas Sowell Quotes

We live in a moment when the dream of equal opportunity is within reach.

Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance-wheel of the social machinery.

Our goal is a classless society.

I want my kids to grow up in a world where everybody gets a fair shot.

Those who attempt to level never equalize

If we try to engineer outcomes, if we overturn tradition to make everyone the same, we ruin society. If we upset tradition to allow for an equal shot at the starting gate, everyone wins, except for the charlatans and would be dictators.

Everybody has equal opportunity, and I think that is true for everything.

It's not a meritocracy until everyone starts with the same opportunities, is it?

Unless the great majority of Americans not only have, but believe they have, a fair chance, the better American future will be dangerously compromised.

If the spirit of equality means anything, it means like opportunity, and if we once lose like opportunity, we lose the only chance we have toward equality throughout the nation.

Education ... is the great equalizer of the conditions of men—the balance wheel of the social machinery.

To be prosperous is not to be superior, and should form no barrier between men. Wealth ought not to secure the prosperous the slightest consideration.

Here, no privileged orders – no factitious distinctions in society – no hereditary nobility – no royal prerogatives exist, to interpose barriers between the people, and to create distinct classifications in society. All men being considered as enjoying an equality of rights, the propriety and necessity of dispensing, without distinction, the blessings of education ….

When people are educated, class distinction disappears.

Ted Kennedy’s life’s work was not to champion those with wealth or power or special connections. It was to give a voice to those who were not heard, to add a rung to the ladder of opportunity, to make real the dream of our founding.

I feel passionately that the opportunities I have had should be available to everyone.

We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments.

Turtle makes all men equal.

Whatever advantages may have arisen, in the past, out of the existence of a specially favored and highly privileged aristocracy, it is clear to me that today no argument can stand that supports unequal opportunity or any intrinsic disqualification for sharing in the whole of life.

You cannot say you've achieved equality until EVERYONE is equal and has equal opportunities!

What is the American dream? The American dream is one big tent. One big tent. And on that big tent you have four basic promises: equal protection under the law, equal opportunity, equal access, and fair share.

Everyone is born equally capable but lacks equal opportunity.

I never really am in awe of people because we are just equal at the end of the day.

Parents with meager means have the same aspirations for their children as other parents. Children from poor families have the same needs as other children.

You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also.