Quotes from Jeff Cooper

It's human nature to be optimistic. Any fool can enter a market, it takes talent to exit consistently and profitably.

What are we going to do if citizens are disarmed, and the government doesn't obey its own laws?

Most governments are designed to protect the government from the people, whereas the United States government was organized to protect the people from the government.

Owning a handgun doesn't make you armed any more than owning a guitar makes you a musician.

You better be looking for another pitcher.

It appears that the Soviets are now going to allow prayer in school. One wonders how soon the United States will catch up.

Pick up a rifle and you change instantly from a subject to a citizen.

The police cannot protect the citizen at this stage of our development, and they cannot even protect themselves in many cases. It is up to the private citizen to protect himself and his family, and this is not only acceptable, but mandatory.

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.

A smart man only believes half of what he hears, a wise man knows which half.

There ain't many troubles that a man caint fix With seven hundred dollars and a thirty ought six.

Man fights with his mind. His hands and his weapons are simply extensions of his will, and one of the fallacies of our era is the notion that equipment is the equivalent of force.

commander may be forgiven for being defeated, but never for being surprised.

If you are justified in shooting you are justified in killing, in all but a few quite obvious circumstances. Don't try to be fancy. Shoot for the center of mass. The world is full of decent people. Criminals we can do without.

ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE SECTIONS of Tom Lea's memorable novel, The Brave Bulls, deals with the visit of the impressario, Eladio Gomez, to a mythical bull ranch known as Las Astas, where the Homeric figure of Don Tiburcio Balbuena raises the finest fighting bulls in all Mexico. By a fortunate chance I was once able to pay a similar visit to the reality on which Las Astas was based, and I found reality to be fully as fascinating as fancy. In

The world is full of decent people. Criminals we can do without.

We are fully justified in valuing the life and person of an intended victim more highly than the life of a pernicious assailant. The attacker must be stopped. At once and completely.

If a felon attacks you and lives, he will reasonably conclude that he can do it again. By submitting to him, you not only imperil your own life, but you jeopardize the lives of others.

Let your attacker worry about his life. Don't hold back. Strike no more after he is incapable of further action, but see that he is stopped.

If you must use your hands, use them with all the strength you possess... If you choose to strike, by all means strike hard.

The police cannot protect the citizen at this stage of our development, and they cannot even protect themselves in many cases. It is up to the private citizen to protect himself and his family, and this is not only acceptable, but mandatory.

It is high time for society to stop worrying about the criminal, and to let the criminal start worrying about society. And by "society" I mean you.

The will to survive is not as important as the will to prevail... the answer to criminal aggression is retaliation.

Without the institution of slavery, civilization would never have been achieved, for no one could ever have done anything intellectual if he had to spend all his time hewing and digging and fighting.