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1. Some things are believed because they are demonstrably true. But many other things are believed simply because they have been asserted repeatedly - and repetition has been accepted as a substitute for evidence.
有些事情是可信的，因为它们显然是真实的，但许多其他事情之所以被相信，仅仅是因为它们一再重复地宣称而被接受为可以取代证据。
2. When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.
当你要帮別人时，你要和他们讲真话；当你要别人帮你时，你要讲他们要听的话。
3. In other words, evidence is too dangerous - politically, financially and psychologically - for some people to allow it to become a threat to their interests or to their own sense of themselves.
换言之，证据在政治上、经济上和心理上都太危险了，以至于一些人不允许它成为对他们的利益或他们的自我意识造成威胁。
4. People who pride themselves on their ‘complexity’ and deride others for being "simplistic" should realize that the truth is often not very complicated. What gets complex is evading the truth.
那些以自己的“复杂性”为荣，嘲笑别人“过于简单化”的人应该意识到，事实往往并不复杂，它 变得复杂纯粹是为了逃避真相。
5. Some things must be done on faith, but the most dangerous kind of faith is that which masquerades as ‘science.’
有些事情必须凭信仰去做，但最危险的一种信仰是伪装成“科学”的信仰。
6. It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
需要相当程度的知识才能意识到自己的无知程度。
7. Mistakes can be corrected by those who pay attention to facts, but dogmatism will not be corrected by those who are wedded to a vision.
错误可以被重视事实的人改正，但教条主义不会被执着于理想的人改正。
8. There are only two ways of telling the complete truth – anonymously and posthumously.
只有两种方式可以说出完整的真相 - 匿名和死后。
9. Open-ended demands are a mandate for ever¬-expanding government bureaucracies with ever-expanding budgets and powers.
没有设限的要求是不断扩大的政府官僚机构，对不断扩大的财政预算和权力，给予自己的授权。
10. I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.
我百思不解，为什么想要保留自己赚来的钱是“贪”，而想要拿别人的钱却不是“贪”。
11. Back in my old neighborhood, there was a special contempt for the kind of guy who was always trying to get two other guys to fight each other. Today, it is considered a great contribution to society to incite consumers against producers, tenants against landlords, women against men, and the races against each other.
在我以前的老邻里，人们特别不屑那种总是试图挑拔別人互斗的人。 今天，煽动消费者与生产者、租户与地主、女性与男性，以及种族之间互相对立，却被认为是对社会的巨大贡献。
12. It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.
很难想象还有比把决策定交给那些不为错误付出任何代价的人手中更愚蠢和危险的了。
13. The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his 'basic rights.’
授人以渔胜于授人以鱼的古训已被一位读者更新：授人以鱼，他会进一步要求塔塔酱和炸薯条！ 尤有甚者，一些想要选票的政客会宣布，这些都是选民的“基本权利”。
14. The real goal should be reduced government spending, rather than balanced budgets achieved by ever rising tax rates to cover ever rising spending.
真正的目标应该是减少政府开支，而不是通过不断提高的税率来弥补不断增加的开支来实现预算平衡。
15. Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.
在保护消费者方面，竞争比政府更有效。
16. The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers.
这个国家最大的分歧不在民主党和共和党之间，也不在女人和男人之间，而是在口惠者和实干者之间。
17. Elections should be held on April 16th - the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.
选举应在 4 月 16 日举行，即我们缴纳所得税后的第二天。 这是为数不多可能阻止政客大笔花钱的事情之一。
18. If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labelled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.
如果你一直认为每个人都应该按照同样的规则行事，按照同样的标准来评判，那么你在 60 年前会被贴上激进分子的标签，在 30 年前会被贴上自由主义的标签，而在今天会被贴上种族主义者的标签。
19. Those who cry out that the government should ‘do something’ never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.
那些大声疾呼政府应该“做点什么事”的人，甚至从未要求提供有关政府做某一件事和实际发生的情况，以及政府什么都没做和实际发生的情况之比较数据。
20. It is not money but the volume of goods and services which determines whether a country is poverty stricken or prosperous.
决定一个国家是贫穷还是繁荣的不是金钱，而是商品和服务的数量。
21. The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.
经济学的第一课是稀缺性：任何东西都不足以满足所有想要它的人。 政治的第一课就是无视经济学的第一课。
22. Capitalism knows only one color: that color is green [the color of money]; all else is necessarily subservient to it, hence, race, gender and ethnicity cannot be considered within it.
资本主义只知道一种颜色：绿色[金钱的颜色]； 其他一切都必然从属于它，因此，不能在其中考虑种族、性别和族群。
23. The biggest and most deadly ‘tax’ rate on the poor comes from a loss of various welfare state benefits – food stamps, housing subsidies and the like – if their income goes up.
对穷人征收的最大和最致命的“税”是，由于他们的收入增加而失去各种福利国家的福利 - 食品券、住房补贴等。
24. But life does not ask us what we want. It presents us with options. Economics is one of the ways of trying to make the most of those options.
但生活不会问我们想要什么。 它为我们提供了选择。 经济学是试图充分利用这些选择的方法之一。
25. Continuing transactions between buyer and seller make sense only if value is subjective, each getting what is worth more subjectively. Economic transactions are not a zero-sum process, where one person loses whatever the other person gains.
只有当价值是主观的时候，买卖双方之间的持续交易才有意义，每个人都获得比主观价值更多。 经济交易不是一个零和过程，一个人失去而另一个人得到。
26. Sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions.
有时看似解决方案比问题多。 仔细审视就会发现，今天的许多问题都是昨天解决方案造成的结果。
27. The real minimum wage is zero.
实际最低工资为零。
28. If you don’t believe in the innate unreasonableness of human beings, just try raising children.
如果你不相信人类与生俱来的不合理性，那就试试养孩子吧。
29. It doesn’t matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.
不管你多聪明，停下來好好想一想。
30. When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.
当人们习惯了特惠待遇时，平等待遇就好像被歧视一样。 |
托马斯·索维尔（Thomas Sowell，1930年6月30日－）：美国经济学家、社会理论家、斯坦福大学胡佛研究所的高级研究员。
 图片附件:
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