Quote

[N]o one's ever been able to show me any difference between democracy and brute force. It's just a majority ganging up on a minority with the minority giving in to avoid getting massacred.

L. Neil Smith

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Show
Minorities
Force
Tyranny
Shows
Avoid
Able
Majority
Ever
Difference
Massacred
Giving
Differences
Brute
Democracy
Brutes
Getting
Minority

More quotes by L. Neil Smith

Image
There's nothing noble or selfless about politicians and there never has been. Putting it charitably, Profiles in Courage is a compendium of Democratic mythology, ghostwritten for an ambitious young Massachusetts Senator who never did a thing for himself if he could pay to have it done by others.
L. Neil Smith
Image
Choose your allies carefully: it's highly unlikely that you'll ever be held morally, legally, or historically accountable for the actions of your enemies.
L. Neil Smith
Image
Just as liberalism is the main force that drives conservatism and maintains its popularity in some quarters, conservatism is the reason liberalism continues to enjoy the traction that it does in our poor civilization.
L. Neil Smith
Image
What happened in America in the 1860s was a war of secession, a war of independence, no different in principle from what happened in America in the 1770s and 1780s.
L. Neil Smith
Image
The only hope we have is the Internet. We must strive to keep it free.
L. Neil Smith
Image
We're most likely to lose our rights when we allow ourselves to be persuaded to deprive others of theirs.
L. Neil Smith
Image
Lincoln emancipated nobody. The man freed not a single slave.
L. Neil Smith
Image
The most dangerous and successful conspiracies take place in public, in plain sight, under the clear, bright light of day -- usually with TV cameras focused on them.
L. Neil Smith
Image
Never Forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn't allow him to do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians.
L. Neil Smith
Image
A libertarian presidential candidate isn't going to win anyway, so he can afford to say that all taxation is theft, and it isn't the job of a libertarian presidential candidate to cook up new ways to commit theft.
L. Neil Smith
Image
I'm tired of being lied to by government, by the media, and by every corporation I have anything to do with.
L. Neil Smith
Image
Today, human civilization is drowning in a sea of lies.
L. Neil Smith
Image
Choose your enemies carefully: you'll probably be known much better and far longer for who they were, than for anything else you ever managed to accomplish.
L. Neil Smith
Image
If conservatives really believed in individual liberty, as they endlessly claim and if they used both halves of their brains then they'd be libertarians. Instead, they sabotage themselves, and their cause, by constantly generating one spurious reason after another to deprive other people of their freedom.
L. Neil Smith
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Beloved friends and comrades... the national Libertarian Party is dead.
L. Neil Smith
Image
I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.
L. Neil Smith
Image
Victim disarmament types are sick, sick people, who'd rather see a woman raped in an alley and strangled with her own pantyhose than see her with a gun in her hand.
L. Neil Smith
Image
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