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L. Neil Smith

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Famous L. Neil Smith Quotes

“Possibly worst of all, from the standpoint of the dedicated enemies of freedom, the Internet is a world that libertarians - having been marginalized for three decades by the establishment media - have made their own, almost without effort. It's an alternative reality (unlike 'meat-space' we live in) in which - exactly like intelligence, bravery, or virtue - the human capacity for violence is not additive, and in which it's impossible to initiate force against anybody.”

“Even if drugs are fully as destructive as they are usually claimed to be, it is morally wrong and demonstrably more destructive for government to deprive people of their unalienable, individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to make an utter mess of their own lives. Since human beings are inclined to learn more from the mistakes they make, rather than from their triumphs, the right to fail, for individuals and groups alike, may be even more important than the right to succeed, and it must be fiercely protected at almost any cost.”

“A lot is said, by foreigners and the left, about America being a violent society. Yet if you subtract the crime statistics for its largest cities places that have been under the strict political control of so-called "progressives", sometimes for many generations what remains, the real America, is the most peaceful, productive, prosperous, and truly progressive civilization in all of human history.”

“Human rights are an aspect of natural law, a consequence of the way the universe works, as solid and as real as photons or the concept of pi. The idea of self- ownership is the equivalent of Pythagoras' theorem, of evolution by natural selection, of general relativity, and of quantum theory. Before humankind discovered any of these, it suffered, to varying degrees, in misery and ignorance.”

“A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor will a libertarian advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.”