113 Quotes & Sayings By Louis Lamour

Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you. Louis LAmour

Only one who has learned much can fully appreciate his ignorance. Louis LAmour

Folks who have lived the cornered sort of life most scholars, teachers, and storekeepers live seldom realize what they've missed in the way of conversation. Some of the best talk and the wisest talk I've ever heard was around campfires, in saloons, bunkhouses, and the like. The idea that all the knowledge of the world is bound up in schools and schoolteachers is a mistaken one. Louis LAmour

Actually, all education is self-education. A teacher is only a guide, to point out the way, and no school, no matter how excellent, can give you education. What you receive is like the outlines in a child’s coloring book. You must fill in the colors yourself. Louis LAmour

It is a poor sort of man who is content to be spoon-fed knowledge that has been filtered through the canon of religious or political belief, and it is a poor sort of man who will permit others to dictate what he may or may not learn. Louis LAmour

There are many ways of fighting. Many a man or woman has waged a good war for truth, honor, and freedom, who did not shed blood in the process. Beware of those who would use violence, too often it is the violence they want and neither truth nor freedom. Louis LAmour

Much of the study of history is a matter of comparison, of relating what was happening in one area to what was happening elsewhere, and what had happened in the past. To view a period in isolation is to miss whatever message it has to offer. Louis LAmour

Evil comes often to a man with money; tyranny comes surely to him without it. I say this, who am Mathurin Kerbouchard, a homeless wanderer upon the earth's far roads. I speak as one who has known hunger and feast, poverty and riches, the glory of the sword and the humility of the defenseless. Hunger inspires no talent, and carried too far, it deadens the faculties and destroys initiative... Louis LAmour

It means little to anybody but us. We set store by kinfolk. We've our troubles from time to time, but when one of us is in danger, there'll be help from any who are around. Louis LAmour

Personally, I do not believe the human mind has any limits but those we impose ourselves. Louis LAmour

Because a man plays a king superbly well does not mean that he would make a good king. Louis LAmour

Many a small man is considered good while he remains small, but let power come to him, and he becomes a raging fury. Louis LAmour

Our world is made up of a myriad of microcosms, of tiny worlds, each with its own habitues, every one known to the others. Louis LAmour

Kill him? Would that be it? No man knew better than he the tricks that Destiny plays on a man, or how often the right man dies at the wrong time and place. A man never wore a gun without inviting trouble, he never stepped into a street and began the gunman's walk without the full knowledge that he might be a shade too slow, that some small thing might disturb him just long enough! Louis LAmour

So many things that are so dramatic or exciting when you read about them actually happen so simply and quietly. We humans like to consider ourselves important to creation and to the world, and we expect that whenever death comes it should be with a crash of thunder and wild shouts or something, or with soft music around and people looking grave and serious. We always have it that way in the theatre because it makes us believe in our importance. Most of our life is a matter of dressing ourselves up to believe in just that, dressing ourselves in attractive clothes, in titles, in reputations. Actually, at base we all realize that we're just a frightened bundle of animals, still afraid of the unknown, and still afraid of thousands of things that can separate us from life, and trying to shield ourselves from our own smallness. Louis LAmour

You would be wise" he agreed, "To go to Cordoba or Toledo. The best of all things is to learn. Money can be lost or stolen, health and strength may fail, but what you have committed to your mind is forever. Louis LAmour

I'm sorry! I really am! I wanted to get out of this place! I want to live! I want to get away from here and never see it again! I hate everything about it! "" You will hate the next place, too, " I said. "What you are you will carry with you. Louis LAmour

...he'd had the foresight to know that a lot of the savages wear store-bought clothes. Louis LAmour

When a man is one of a kind, he will be lonely wherever he is. Louis LAmour

The wealthy and satisfied do not migrate, they stagnate. Louis LAmour

It has seemed to me that each year one should pause to take stock of himself, to ask: Where am I going? What am I becoming? What do I wish to do and become? Most people whom I encountered were without purpose, people who had given themselves no goal. The first goal need not be the final one, for a sailing ship sails first by one wind, then another. The point is that it is always going somewhere, proceeding toward a final destination. Louis LAmour

If you want the law to leave you alone, keep your hair trimmed and your boots shined. Louis LAmour

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. Louis LAmour

Now, tomorrow Miss Laurie McCrae and me, we have an appointment with a sky pilot who will make it proper for us to travel in double harness. Louis LAmour

Never can tell when you might come on somebody needs skinning. Louis LAmour

...if we are to become a land of homes and people, evil men must not be allowed to persist in their evil. Louis LAmour

Someone has said that culture is what remains with you after you have forgotten all you have read, and I believe there is much truth in that. Louis LAmour

...the way I figure, no man has the right to be ignorant. In a country like this, ignorance is a crime. If a man is going to vote, if he's going to take part in his country and its government, then it's up to him to understand. Louis LAmour

I've noticed...that whenever a man is asked to be realistic he is being asked to betray something in which he believes. It is the favorite argument of those who believe that only the end matters, not the means. Louis LAmour

Folks can’t seem to realize that it isn’t a smooth talker we need in there but a steady man, a man with judgement. Any medicine-show man can spout words, if they are written for him. It takes no genius to sound well. To act right and at the right time is something else again. Louis LAmour

Indeed, I find that distance lends perspective and I often write better of a place when I am some distance from it. One can be so overwhelmed by the forest as to miss seeing the trees. Louis LAmour

The terms we use for what is considered supernatural are woefully inadequate. Beyond such terms as ghost, specter, poltergeist, angel, devil, or spirit, might there not be something more our purposeful blindness has prevented us from understanding? We accept the fact that there may be other worlds out in space, but might there not be other worlds here? Other worlds, in other dimensions, coexistent with this? If there are other worlds parallel to ours, are all the doors closed? Or does one, here or there, stand ajar? . Louis LAmour

People only talk about how wonderful youth is when they have forgotten how hard it was. Louis LAmour

Few of us ever live in the present. We are forever anticipating what is to come or remembering what has gone. Louis LAmour

People have a greater tolerance for evil than for violence. If crooked gamboling, thieving and robing are covered over folks will tolerate it longer than out right violence, even when the violence may be cleansing. Louis LAmour

Violence is an evil thing, but when the guns are all in the hands of the men without respect for human rights, then men are really in trouble. Louis LAmour

Without books we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever. Without books we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever. . Louis LAmour

I've a regard for law, although I do not always agree with it. Without law, man becomes a beast. Louis LAmour

It is easy to destroy a book, but an idea once implanted has roots no man can utterly destroy. Louis LAmour

I do not think much of ages. People are people. What does it matter how old or young they are? It is a category, and I do not like categories. It is a sort of pigeonhole or a label. Louis LAmour

She'd never been one to think in terms of years, anyway. A person was what they were, and many a man at forty was sixty in his ways and many another was twenty and would never grow past it. Louis LAmour

No man is a complete ruler or dictator. He is only the mouthpiece for the wishes of his followers. As long as he expresses those wishes, he leads them. Louis LAmour

I really learned how to write from Robert Louis Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, and de Maupassant. Louis LAmour

I like my fellow man, but I also realize he carried a good measure of the Old Nick in him and he can find a good excuse for almost any kind of wrongdoing or mischief. Louis LAmour

A writer’s brain is like a magician’s hat. If you’re going to get anything out of it, you have to put something in it first Louis LAmour

If one really wants to learn, one has to decide what is important. Spending an evening on the town? Attending a ball game? Or learning something that can be with you your life long? Louis LAmour

It had been my father's way to remove obstructions, to repair washouts in old trails, to leave each trail better than he had found it. "Tread lightly on the paths, " he had told me. "Others will come when you have gone." That was how I would remember my father. There was never a place he walked that was not the better for his having passed. For every tree he cut down he planted two. Louis LAmour

For one who reads, there is no limit to the number of lives that may be lived, for fiction, biography, and history offer an inexhaustible number of lives in many parts of the world, in all periods of time. Louis LAmour

To live in a city, one must be larger than one's environment or enjoy belonging to the crowd. Louis LAmour

A man shares his days with hunger thirst and cold with the good times and the bad and the first part of being a man is to understand that. Louis LAmour

A mountain man tries to live with the country instead of against it. Louis LAmour

One learns to adapt to the land in which one lives. Louis LAmour

She had believed the land was her enemy and she struggled against it but you could not make war against a land any more than you could against the sea. One had to learn to live with it to belong to it to fit into its seasons and its ways. Louis LAmour

You can't fight the desert... you have to ride with it. Louis LAmour

To exist is to adapt and if one could not adapt one died and made room for those who could. Louis LAmour

A body shouldn't heed what might be. He's got to do with what is. Louis LAmour

Men strive for peace but it is their enemies that give them strength and I think if man no longer had enemies he would have to invent them for his strength only grows from struggle. Louis LAmour

Enemies can be an incentive to survive and become someone in spite of them. Enemies can keep you alert and aware. Louis LAmour

What a man wants to do he generally can do if he wants to badly enough. Louis LAmour

The one law that does not change is that everything changes and the hardship I was bearing today was only a breath away from the pleasures I would have tomorrow and those pleasures would be all the richer because of the memories of this I was enduring. Louis LAmour

Any man can shoot a gun and with practice he can draw fast and shoot accurately but that makes no difference. What counts is how you stand up when somebody is shooting back at you. Louis LAmour

To disbelieve is easy to scoff is simple to have faith is harder. Louis LAmour

A man who says he has never been scared is either lying or else he's never been any place or done anything. Louis LAmour

Hate would destroy him who hated. Louis LAmour

Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers for each rage leaves him less than he had been before-it takes something from him. Louis LAmour

Revenge could steal a man's life until there was nothing left but emptiness. Louis LAmour

A man can lose sight of everything else when he's bent on revenge and it ain't worth it. Louis LAmour

Man needs so little ... yet he begins wanting so much. Louis LAmour

He might never really do what he said but at least he had it in mind. He had somewhere to go. Louis LAmour

The wind was cold off the mountains and I was a naked man with enemies behind me and nothing before me but hope. Louis LAmour

He never knew when he was whipped ... so he never was. Louis LAmour

There was a Texas Ranger one time who said that there's no stopping a man who knows he's in the right and keeps a-coming. Louis LAmour

One thing we learned. To make a start and keep plugging. When I had fights at school the little while I went I just bowed my neck and kept swinging until something hit the dirt. Sometimes it was me but I always got up. Louis LAmour

Being scared can keep a man from getting killed and often makes a better fighter of him. Louis LAmour

There is no miraculous change that takes place in a boy that makes him a man. He becomes a man by being a man. Louis LAmour

I am somebody. I am me. I like being me. And I need nobody to make me somebody. Louis LAmour

My future is one I must make myself. Louis LAmour

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment heredity and movements and changes in the world about him then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be.... Everyone has it within his power to say this I am today that I shall be tomorrow. Louis LAmour

I would not sit waiting for some value tomorrow nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime.... I would make something happen. Louis LAmour

Pa he always said a man had to look spry for himself because nobody would do it for him your opportunities didn't come knocking around you had to hunt them down and hog-tie them. Louis LAmour

I have been nothing ... but there is tomorrow. Louis LAmour

Everyone has it within his power to say this I am today that I shall be tomorrow. Louis LAmour

For you and me today is all we have tomorrow is a mirage that may never become reality. Louis LAmour

I fear there will be no future for those who do not change. Louis LAmour

Few of us ever live in the present we are forever anticipating what is to come or remembering what has gone. Louis LAmour

This-this was what made life: a moment of quiet the water falling in the fountain the girl's voice ... a moment of captured beauty. He who is truly wise will never permit such moments to escape. Louis LAmour

Victory is won not in miles but in inches. Win a little now hold your ground and later win a little more. Louis LAmour

It is better to have no emotion when it is work. Do what needs to be done and do it coolly. Louis LAmour