Top 80 Jeff Cooper Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The one who anticipates the action wins. The one who does not, loses.”

— Jeff Cooper

52. “It has long been my conviction that a masked man with a gun is a target. I see no reason to change that view.”

— Jeff Cooper

53. “Therefore, if you are attacked, retaliate instantly. Be sudden. Be quick. Speed is your salvation.”

— Jeff Cooper

54. “Regardless of what we think we know and should happen the reality is that a lot of stock action is random. Therefore, money management is crucial if you want to be successful as a trader. To me, it’s the cornerstone of both making a living at trading and building wealth.”

— Jeff Cooper

55. “A free man must not be told how to think, either by the government or by social activists. He may certainly be shown the right way, but he must not accept being forced into it.”

— Jeff Cooper

56. “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.”

— Jeff Cooper

57. “Speed is the absolute essence of any form of combat.”

— Jeff Cooper

58. “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.”

— Jeff Cooper

59. “What are we going to do if citizens are disarmed, and the government doesn’t obey its own laws?”

— Jeff Cooper

60. “If you find yourself under lethal attack don’t be kind. Be harsh. Be tough. Be ruthless.”

— Jeff Cooper

61. “Aggressiveness carries with it an incalculable moral edge in any combat, offensive or defensive.”

— Jeff Cooper

62. “It is true that a victim who fights back may suffer for it, but one who does not almost certainly will suffer for it.”

— Jeff Cooper

63. “Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons.”

— Jeff Cooper

64. “One of the notable aspects of the democratic process is that one need not know anything about a subject in order to pass laws about it.”

— Jeff Cooper

65. “If it is ever your misfortune to be attacked, alertness will have given you a little warning, decisiveness will have given you a proper course to pursue, and if that course is to counterattack, carry it out with everything you’ve got! Be indignant. Be angry. Be aggressive.”

— Jeff Cooper

66. “When under attack, it is necessary to evaluate the situation and to decide instantly upon a proper course of action, to be carried out immediately with all the force you can bring to bear. He who hesitates is indeed lost. Do not soliloquize. Do not delay. Be decisive.”

— Jeff Cooper

67. “The trouble with democracy is that 50 percent of the voters are below average.”

— Jeff Cooper

68. “Use your eyes. Do not enter unfamiliar areas that you cannot observe first. Make it a practice to swing wide around corners, use window glass for rearward visibility, and get something solid behind you when you pause.”

— Jeff Cooper

69. “That is why our masters in Washington are so anxious to disarm us. They are not afraid of criminals. They are afraid of a populace which cannot be subdued by tyrants.”

— Jeff Cooper

70. “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.”

— Jeff Cooper

71. “The specific course you decide upon is, within certain parameters, less important than the vigor with which you execute it.”

— Jeff Cooper

72. “Know what is behind you, and pay particular attention to anything out of place.”

— Jeff Cooper

73. “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.”

— Jeff Cooper

74. “Not long ago it was easy to tell who the bad guys were. They carried Kalashnikovs. Now it is much more complicated, but one thing is sure – any man who covers his face and packs a gun is a legitimate target for any decent citizen.”

— Jeff Cooper

75. “At long last I have discovered that most shooters are not interested in firearms as tools, but rather as toys. Such people do not acquire their weapons because of what they will do, but rather to gratify the “Christmas morning joy” that we largely left behind in our childhood.”

— Jeff Cooper

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

— Jeff Cooper

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

— Jeff Cooper

78. “If I wasn’t a trader, I would probably be in the film business in some capacity and writing in some other form. I went to NYU Film School and London Film School.”

— Jeff Cooper

79. “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.”

— Jeff Cooper

80. “The proliferation of right-to-carry laws throughout the states has drawn plaintive complaints from the criminal element. They feel that it makes their profession too dangerous when the streets are full of “civilians” who may or may not be armed. Poor babies!”

— Jeff Cooper

81. “Not to our surprise, we discover that gun crime in Britain is up 10.9 percent since the disarmament of the private citizen.”

— Jeff Cooper

82. “What you do to prevent further felonious assault, as long as the felon is still capable of action, is justified.”

— Jeff Cooper

83. “It’s a matter of will. If you know that you can keep your head, and that you must keep your head, you probably will keep your head.”

— Jeff Cooper

84. “Democracy has many definitions, but what’s in it for me is not an element of any of them.”

— Jeff Cooper

85. “The purpose of the pistol is to stop a fight that somebody else has started, almost always at very short range.”

— Jeff Cooper

86. “Anyone who willfully and maliciously attacks another without sufficient cause deserves no consideration.”

— Jeff Cooper

87. “Anyone who is aware of his environment knows that the peril of physical assault does exist, and that it exists everywhere and at all times.”

— Jeff Cooper

88. “On the very instant that we know that our assailant intends us serious physical harm, we must work just as fast as we can.”

— Jeff Cooper