More than a one-liner, but I've always liked this.
Colonel Jeff Cooper, 1920 - 2006
. . . But guns, love and defense of country, and fighting the good fight are what he will be remembered for, and these things and these ideas brought out some of his most powerful writing.
"Weapons are the tools of power," he wrote back in 1979. "In the hands of the state, they can be the tools of decency or the tools of oppression, depending on the righteousness of that state. In the hands of criminals, they are the tools of evil. In the hands of the free and decent citizen, they should be the tools of liberty. Weapons compound man's power to achieve whatever purpose he may have. They amplify the capabilities of both the good man and the bad, and to exactly the same degree, having no will of their own. Thus, we must regard them as servants, not masters--and good servants of good men. Without them, man is diminished, and his opportunities to fulfill his destiny are lessened. An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it."
