Louis L'Amour Quotes

To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder. Yet I had faith in the intentions of my countrymen, no matter how far they might at times stray from those intentions.

How many time have I talked with people who have ridden the trails where I have ridden, yet had seen nothing? They passed over the land just to get over it, not to live with it and see it, feel it.

There was beauty out there...

We must not lose touch with what we were, with what we had been, nor must we allow the well of our history to dry up, for a child without tradition is a child crippled before the world. Tradition can also be an anchor of stability and a shield to guard one from irresponsibility and hasty decision.

Reading without thinking is as nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.

I have read my books by many lights, hoarding their beauty, their wit or wisdom against the dark days when I would have no book, nor a place to read. I have known hunger of the belly kind many times over, but I have known a worse hunger: the need to know and to learn.

And as far as trails go, there’s always an open trail for the mind if you keep the doors open and give it a chance.

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

- This Indian wife you have...
- Had. She's dead.
- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up
an unhappy memory.
- I can't remember anything unhappy
about Destarte.

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

Knowledge is awareness, and to it there are many paths, not all of them paved with logic. But sometimes one is guided through the maze by intuition. One is led by something felt in the wind, something seen in the stars, something that calls from the wasteland to the spirit.
To receive the message, the mental pores must be open. And we white men in striving for our success, in seeking to build a new world from what lies around us, sometimes forget that there are other ways, sometimes forget the Lonesome Gods of the far places, the gods who live on the empty sea, who dance with the dust devils and who wait quietly in the shadows under the cliffs where ancient men once marked their passing with hands.

"You killed Rice Wheeler," he said, "the Panhandle gunman. "He should have stayed in the Panhandle," I said."

I have told many, yet when I go down that last trail, I know there will be a thousand stories hammering at my skull, demanding to be told.

You can make laws against weapons but they will be observed only by those who don't intend to use them anyway. The lawless can always smuggle or steal or even make a gun. By refusing to wear a gun you allow the criminal to operate with impunity.

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

When the raw, harsh liquor had cut the dust from his throat he looked up at a nearby