Louis L'Amour Quotes

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.

Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble. It sounds swell when you write about it, but it's hell when you meet it face to face in a dark and lonely place.

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

"Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, "This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow.

A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner, so if one's life is cold and bare he can blame none but himself. You have a chance to select from pretty elegant furnishings.

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?

Remember that, son. The dogs bark, but the wagons go on their way, and if you’re going someplace you haven’t time to bother with barking dogs.

This is a story of an adventure in education, pursued not under the best of conditions.

Only one who has learned much can fully appreciate his ignorance. He knows well the limits of his knowledge and how much is waiting to be learned.

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.

he revealed nothing. He nodded gravely. “I suppose it might be, ma’am, but I was hired to do the job and take the risks.” “Figured I’d offer,” Thomas said, unwilling to let the matter drop. “You tell me what you figure to do, and I’ll be glad to help.” “Another time.” The marshal tasted his coffee again and looked directly at the girl. “You are new in Sentinel. Will you be staying long?” “No.” “Do you have relatives here?” “No.” He waited, but no explanation was offered. Fitz Moore was puzzled and he studied her from the corners of his eyes. There was no sound in the room but the ticking of the big, old-fashioned clock. The girl sat very still, the delicate line of her profile bringing to him a faint, lost feeling, a nostalgia from his boyhood when such women as she rode to hounds, when there was perfume on the air, blue grass, picket fences . . .

A knife is sharpened on stone, steel is tempered by fire, but men must be sharpened by men.

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 yours forever.

"Somebody comin'," he said softly. "Five or six, maybe." His words were spoken over an empty fire, for each of us vanished ghostlike into the surrounding darkness. I, fortunately, had the presence of mind to retain my coffee. With the Ferguson rifle in my right hand, I drank coffee from the cup in my left.

I have education and once I had position. Now I am nobody, but I am happy.