Quote

Those who sell their liberty for security are understandable, if pitiable, creatures. Those who sell the liberty of others for wealth, power, or even a moments respite deserve only the end of a rope.

L. Neil Smith

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L. Neil Smith
Age: 75 †
Born: 1946
Born: May 12
Died: 2021
Died: August 27
Author
Novelist
Politician
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Denver
Colorado
Lester Neil Smith III
Power
Deserve
Even
Creatures
Wealth
Pitiable
Security
Respite
Liberty
Understandable
Moments
Rope
Others
Sell
Ends
Sells

More quotes by L. Neil Smith

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Armed people are free. No state can control those who have the machinery and the will to resist, no mob can take their liberty and property. And no 220 pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110 pound woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out. Is that evil? Is that wrong?
L. Neil Smith
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It is individuals who must be encouraged to undertake the unprecedented - and unprecedentedly profitable - effort to prevent the annihilation of the human race.
L. Neil Smith
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Beloved friends and comrades... the national Libertarian Party is dead.
L. Neil Smith
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I'll remind you all, however, that for government, existence is a privilege, not a right.
L. Neil Smith
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Politicians need human misery. ... Government's a disease masquerading as its own cure.
L. Neil Smith
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The freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right - subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility.
L. Neil Smith
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Lincoln emancipated nobody. The man freed not a single slave.
L. Neil Smith
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Violent crime is a solved problem - all they have to do is repeal the laws that keep those intelligent, capable, and responsible men and women from arming themselves, and violent crime evaporates like dry ice on a hot summer day.
L. Neil Smith
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This planet is 15 million years overdue for an asteroid strike like the one that killed the dinosaurs.
L. Neil Smith
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We're most likely to lose our rights when we allow ourselves to be persuaded to deprive others of theirs.
L. Neil Smith
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Collective states are constitutionally incapable of reliably producing anything but corpses.
L. Neil Smith
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And yet, what is bravery but the capacity to reject our fears, ignore and supress them, then go on to do whatever it is we are afraid to do.
L. Neil Smith
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Government is about stealing and nothing else. That's all it's ever been about. That's all it'll ever be about.
L. Neil Smith
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The Bill of Rights isn't about us, it's about them . It isn't a list of things we're permitted to do, it's a list of things they aren't allowed even to consider.
L. Neil Smith
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One thing about a police state, you can always find the police.
L. Neil Smith
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Try never to speak of your enemies by name. Any publicity is still publicity - and there are those for whom your disapproval constitutes a recommendation.
L. Neil Smith
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There's a big difference between keeping the peace, which is something folks do pretty well themselves, and enforcing the law, which is another thing altogether.
L. Neil Smith
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I'm tired of living in a police state.
L. Neil Smith
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If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything - without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.
L. Neil Smith
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What I want to accomplish artistically amounts to nothing more than fulfilling the promise of the American Revolution.
L. Neil Smith