Quotes from L. Neil Smith

The War on Drugs employs millions - politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and now the military - that probably couldn't find a place for their dubious talents in a free market, unless they were to sell pencils from a tin cup on street corners.

It's often been observed that the first casualty of war is the truth. But that's a lie, too, in its way. The reality is that, for most wars to begin, the truth has to have been sacrificed a long time in advance.

Great men don't 'move to the center' - great men move the center!

Lincoln emancipated nobody. The man freed not a single slave.

Guns cause crime like flies cause garbage!

Government is waging war against the people.

I'm tired of being lied to by government, by the media, and by every corporation I have anything to do with.

Politicians need human misery. ... Government's a disease masquerading as its own cure.

I'll remind you all, however, that for government, existence is a privilege, not a right.

Government is about stealing and nothing else. That's all it's ever been about. That's all it'll ever be about.

Like the government, corporations must be bound with the chains of the Constitution, and especially of the Bill of Rights.

City governments ought to be abolished, if only as a public health measure.

The only hope we have is the Internet. We must strive to keep it free.

Beloved friends and comrades... the national Libertarian Party is dead.

occasionally I like carrying raw steel to remind myself of an important lesson. The blade's an extension of the hand, the agent--no pun intended--of my will . Most people understand this immediately of edged weapons... The trick--and few are subtle or sophisticated enough to master it--is to see that this is equally true... by implication, of all machines.

It causeth unease. - Oh it doth, doth it?

There exists no "invisible hand"—that was always an unfortunate turn of phrase—but billions of highly visible fingers, doing, purely for personal gain, what others will freely barter for, with the sole object of improving their lives and those of their children.

Have you no respect?" Lando stopped, gave the robot a sober look. "Not a grain of it—not when it's being imposed on me by the architecture.

How was it that someone who loved life could be unafraid to die?

Just who in the Hall are you, anyway?" Vuffi Raa said. Lando looked at the robot sharply. He hated having his good lines stolen.

The trouble with two partners having separate sets of mortal enemies is that said enemies don't always make distinctions.

I do not know, my friend. It seems wrong somehow that the success of a race be measured by its ability to do violence.

he didn't care who ran the universe—he'd break whatever rules it suited him to disobey in any case, whoever was in charge—

he limbered up, swung the guns up and down, side to side. The chair followed with them, giving him an exhilarating ride that was probably the real reason he liked the weapon so much.