Much had been made about the celebrities we lost in 2016, but one of the biggest losses is not a celebrity in the classical sense, nor was it someone that passed away, but rather someone just under the public’s consciousness yet still very influential on public discourse. Thomas Sowell an economist, author, social theorist and political commentator has decided, at the age of 86, to finally call it a career.

His long career saw him associated with some of America’s most well-respected institutions, such as Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, UCLA and the Hoover Institution most recently, just to name a few.

Sowell is known for having a way with words. His ability to make a point concisely and impactfully is a rare gift, one that anyone who has ever tried to string together a coherent sentence can attest to. Regardless of whether you agree with his position on this topic or the other, one can still appreciate the cleverness and often brutal honesty of some of his best-known lines.

Since Mr. Sowell largely shunned self-promotion, I thought we could do it for him. A collection of some of his more well-known statements is below. Even when taken out of context they stand on their own and showcase his acerbic wit.

A moral monopoly is the antithesis of a marketplace of ideas.

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 labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.

The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites.

The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.

One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them.

The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.

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.'

The more people who are dependent on government handouts, the more votes the left can depend on for an ever-expanding welfare state.

All the political angst and moral melodrama about getting 'the rich' to pay 'their fair share' is part of a big charade. This is not about economics, it is about politics.

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.

The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.

Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.

The big divide in this country is not between Democrats and Republicans, or women and men, but between talkers and doers.

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.

Liberals seem to assume that, if you don't believe in their particular political solutions, then you don't really care about the people that they claim to want to help.

The black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it has disintegrated in the wake of the liberals' expansion of the welfare state.

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.

Without a moral framework, there is nothing left but immediate self-indulgence by some and the path of least resistance by others. Neither can sustain a free society.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty.

Too much of what is called 'education' is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

Immigration laws are the only laws that are discussed in terms of how to help people who break them.

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.

In liberal logic, if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians, to spend in ways that will increase their chances of getting reelected.

People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

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.