Top 60 Brad Thor Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “None of the sheep ever wanted a sheepdog around until one of them spotted a wolf. By then, it was often too late.”

— Brad Thor

2. “Power perceived is power achieved.”

— Brad Thor

3. “Success leaves clues, and if you sow the same seeds, youll reap the same rewards.”

— Brad Thor

4. “Hegelian dialectic – a psychological tool used to manipulate the masses. In this case, you create a problem, wait for the reaction, and then offer the solution. What people historically fail to realize, though, is that those offering the solution are the same people who caused the problem in the first place. They also fail to realize that no matter what the solution is, it always ends up providing its creators with more power.”

— Brad Thor

5. “Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people.”

— Brad Thor

6. “If you steadfastly refused to quit, you rapidly narrowed your options to only winning.”

— Brad Thor

7. “There is no justice in social justice, and there is no equality in social equality.”

— Brad Thor

8. “If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s that life is all about change, and stress comes from avoiding change.”

— Brad Thor

9. “I always have a different way of looking at things.”

— Brad Thor

10. “As the old saying goes, you can’t spell unprofessional, unethical, or unaccountable without the UN.”

— Brad Thor

11. “I live in America. I have the right to write whatever I want. And it’s equaled by another right just as powerful: the right not to read it. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend people.”

— Brad Thor

12. “If we talk about the glass being half empty or half full, I want to know what does the glass look like from underneath the table?”

— Brad Thor

13. “I really believe that a writer is someone who has trained their mind to misbehave.”

— Brad Thor

14. “What has bothered and angered radical Muslims is that I’m a non-Muslim writing anything at all about Islam. But this is fiction, and I don’t think Islam is above criticism or fictionalization any more so than Judaism, Christianity, Mormonism or Hinduism is.”

— Brad Thor

15. “It’s the world’s peaceful Muslims, the majority of the followers of Islam, who have perverted the faith. They have strayed. If Mohammed came back today you can bet there’d be hell to pay. He’d be lopping off heads left and right. And he’d have a lot of help too because in case you haven’t noticed, the largest killer of Muslims in the world isn’t us filthy infidels, it’s other Muslims. Fundamentalist Islam is booming, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

— Brad Thor

16. “People who took themselves too seriously not only were no fun, but could also be very dangerous.”

— Brad Thor

17. “I know my limits. You don’t ever need to worry about me.” “Thanks, Scot. I’ll remind myself of that next time I see you looking like a flipped turtle.”

— Brad Thor

18. “The rain forests of the Congo Basin contained so much water that they caused their own weather system, and were known as the “Lungs of Africa.”

— Brad Thor

19. “Incredible brilliance often dwells on the razor’s edge of madness...”

— Brad Thor

20. “I am indeed honored to call him my friend.”

— Brad Thor

21. “The great thing about the British SAS was that they viewed war the same way the American Special Operations community did. You didn’t win by thinking inside the box and following someone else’s rules. You turned the box upside down and made your own rules, no matter what the enemy threw at you.”

— Brad Thor

22. “We have an incredible warrior class in this country – people in law enforcement, intelligence – and I thank God every night we have them standing fast to protect us from the tremendous amount of evil that exists in the world.”

— Brad Thor

23. “The truth was, when it came to Islam, it had been violent since its inception. Its clearly stated goal was worldwide conquest. It was a mandate handed down in all of its religious texts. And while Harvath believed there were peaceful and moderate Muslims, he knew from studying the religion that there was no such thing as peaceful and moderate Islam.”

— Brad Thor

24. “Robert Ashford possessed one of the key character flaws necessary to a traitor. He thought he was smarter than everyone else. This allowed the overeducated career bureaucrat to sell out his own country, because he believed he knew what was best for his nation and its people.”

— Brad Thor

25. “There aren’t many honest men or women in Washington anymore. Politicians get where they are by the sheer force of their egos, not their convictions. And you know what? It’s our fault as voters. We don’t demand better candidates, so we end up getting what we deserve – on both sides of the aisle.”

— Brad Thor

26. “As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, ‘Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

— Brad Thor

27. “He had the three ingredients to happiness right in the palm of his hand and he knew it – something to do, someone to love, and something to look forward to.”

— Brad Thor

28. “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. – George Orwell.”

— Brad Thor

29. “When you grow up with a name like Brad Thor, people expect you to be 6-foot-4 and a pile of muscles.”

— Brad Thor

30. “You know when I told you the joke about how a friend will help you move, but a real friend will help you move a body? I was only kidding.”

— Brad Thor

31. “I like books that have razor-sharp plotting that snaps and moves along. It’s not about the main character being different at the end. I don’t want my main character to be different in the end. I still want him committed to his ideas, to be steadfast, true and loyal.”

— Brad Thor

32. “Malthus believed that a Utopian society could never be achieved as long as the world’s population was allowed to continue to grow unchecked. The only way to protect the earth and improve the existence of mankind was to have less of mankind – something he believed Mother Nature would eventually deliver in the form of widespread famine and disease.”

— Brad Thor

33. “The only people who might hope to survive were those who had exercised some degree of caution and had prepared in advance.”

— Brad Thor

34. “We don’t even use the word terror anymore. There’s only ‘man-made disasters’ caused by disenfranchised groups who are really just ’misunderstood.”

— Brad Thor

35. “He carried no electronics. No laptop, no cell phone, no walkie-talkie. He carried no ID. Beside his large-caliber Glock, spare magazines, and a knife, there was nothing on his person that could connect him to anything, anyone, or anywhere. That was how professionals worked.”

— Brad Thor

36. “PC or not, Middle Eastern groups, including Abu Nidal’s, are not tacticians. They walk into nightclubs strapped with explosives, plant car bombs, spray crowded markets with machine-gun fire, and fly hijacked planes full of fuel into buildings. Plain and simple, they’re cowards. They won’t confront anyone on a one-to-one basis. They don’t have the savvy or the courage to do in-your-face operations.”

— Brad Thor

37. “The best kind of nation was one where the government feared the people. When the government feared the people there was liberty. When the people feared the government, there was tyranny.”

— Brad Thor

38. “Snyder had scaled the rocky heights of the American political landscape by adhering to a simple mantra: Do unto others before they do unto you.”

— Brad Thor

39. “Harvath had met and worked with over his years in both the SEALs and the Secret Service. Harvath stood up and started moving toward the front of the cabin.”

— Brad Thor

40. “I write about things that are important for us as Americans. I’m concerned about al-Qaeda sneaking across the border with the illegal immigrants that are using the coyotes to get across the border. And that’s not a Democrat or Republican issue, that’s a national security issue.”

— Brad Thor

41. “In America, only opportunity is assured, not outcomes. Anyone who promises otherwise is acting contrary to the values upon which our Republic was founded.”

— Brad Thor

42. “Do not fear failure. Do more than is required of you. Make your plans fit the circumstances. There is only one type of discipline – perfect discipline.”

— Brad Thor

43. “Al Qaeda doesn’t abide by the Geneva Conventions, so in my opinion, they should not be afforded the protections of them.”

— Brad Thor

44. “Revenge was a bitter medicine. It didn’t cure suffering. It didn’t provide closure. It only hollowed you out further.”

— Brad Thor

45. “Less really is more. It’s a tendency of beginning writers to want to prove what they’re talking about by going too far with description. I think you’ve got to keep it short, crisp and clean.”

— Brad Thor

46. “There are writers who go their whole lives and never hit that No. 1 spot.”

— Brad Thor

47. “My point is that bureaucrats – like everyone else – have a mind-set. The longer they work for government, the more they believe government is the answer, and the less they trust the everyday citizen. In fact, they begin to believe that certain groups of citizens are the root of the nation’s problems. They see them as a threat. If those citizens can be brought to heel, the bureaucracy sees itself as doing the citizenry at large a greater good, actually making their lives better.”

— Brad Thor

48. “As a living organism, the Federal Government’s number one job was self-preservation. Any threat to its existence had to be dealt with.”

— Brad Thor

49. “He was coming in way too fast. He’d had no choice. The wind had changed, and coming in quickly was the only way to keep up with the speed of the enormous vessel.”

— Brad Thor

50. “The worth of a culture, in his opinion, could be boiled down to one thing – how well that culture took care of its weakest members, particularly its women and children.”

— Brad Thor