Top 80 Jeff Cooper Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “It is okay to cut your wife’s throat as long as you are rich, famous – and black.”

— Jeff Cooper

52. “Offering democracy to an Arab is like bringing a horse to a steakhouse.”

— Jeff Cooper

53. “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.”

— Jeff Cooper

54. “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

55. “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

56. “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

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

— Jeff Cooper

58. “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.”

— Jeff Cooper

59. “In all history the only bright rays cutting the gloom of oppression have come from men who would rather get hurt than give in.”

— Jeff Cooper

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

— Jeff Cooper

61. “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

62. “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

63. “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

64. “We continue to be exasperated by the view, apparently gaining momentum in certain circles, that armed robbery is okay as long as nobody gets hurt! The proper solution to armed robbery is a dead robber, on the scene.”

— Jeff Cooper

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

— Jeff Cooper

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

— Jeff Cooper

67. “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

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

— Jeff Cooper

69. “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

70. “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

71. “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.”

— Jeff Cooper

72. “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

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

— Jeff Cooper

74. “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

75. “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

76. “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

77. “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

78. “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

79. “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

80. “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

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

— Jeff Cooper

82. “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

83. “It seems evident that the basis for civil safety is homogeneity. A culture which is socially uniform is pretty well devoid of informal violence.”

— 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