Louis L'Amour
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.Collection: Strength
Historical novels are, without question, the best way of teaching history, for they offer the human stories behind the events and leave the reader with a desire to know more.Collection: Teaching
The fact of the matter is that poor men do not often steal, and when they do, it is petty theft, something to eat or perhaps an item of clothing to keep them from the cold. Thieves are usually those who have something and want more.Collection: Men
Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned onCollection: Inspirational
No matter how much I admire our schools, I know that no university exists that can provide an education; what a university can provide is an outline, to give the learner a direction and guidance. The rest one has to do for oneself.Collection: School
Sometimes we have the dream but we are not ourselves ready for the dream. We have to grow to meet it.Collection: Dream
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.Collection: Graduation
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.Collection: Gun
A man who says he has never been scared is either lying or else he's never been any place or done anything.Collection: Fear
I would not sit waiting for some vague tomorrow, nor for something to happen. One could wait a lifetime, and find nothing at the end of the waiting. I would begin here, I would make something happen.Collection: Waiting
Luck comes to a man who puts himself in the way of it. You went where something might be found and you found something, simple as that.Collection: Simple
A man can lose sight of everything else when he's bent on revenge, and it ain't worth it.Collection: Revenge
Do you wish to learn? There are books that can teach you anything, and there is no cheaper form of education, nor one whose effects are more lasting. My education came from books, and they have been my companions by many campfires, in bunkhouses, ships' forecastles, in hotels and on planes. No matter where you find me, I am never far from a book.Collection: Book
When you go to a country, you must learn how to say two things: how to ask for food, and to tell a woman that you love her. Of these the second is more important, for if you tell a woman you love her, she will certainly feed you.Collection: Country
There is no miraculous change that takes place in a boy that makes him a man. He becomes a man by being a man.Collection: Attitude
Once you have read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.Collection: Inspirational
When at the typewriter I am no longer where I site but am away across the mountains, in ancient cities or on the Great Plains among the buffalo. Often I think of what pitiful fools are those who use mind-altering drugs to seek feelings they do not have, each drug taking a little more from what they have of mind, leaving them a little less. Give the brain encouragement from study, from thinking, from visualizing, and no drugs are needed.Collection: Encouragement
There are shadows for the shadows of things, as a reflection seen in a mirror of a mirror. We know there are circles within circles and dimensions beyond dimension. Reality is itself a shadow, only an appearance accepted by those whose eyes shun what might lie beyond.Collection: Lying
I fear there will be no future for those who do not change.Collection: Future
Victory is not won in miles but in inches.Collection: Victory
I have been nothing, but there is tomorrow.Collection: Tomorrow
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.Collection: Thinking
I wonder why it is the man who pleads for mercy never gives it.Collection: Men
To exist is to adapt, and if one could not adapt, one died and made room for those who could.Collection: Rooms
The Apache don't have a word for love," he said. "Know what they both say at the marriage? The squaw-taking ceremony?" "Tell me." "Varlebena. It means forever. That's all they say.Collection: Mean
Mountains should not be judged by altitude.Collection: Mountain
The only power source a book needs is you. If you have to leave for a few minutes you have not lost the story. It is waiting for you when you return. You can pick up a book and resume reading at any time, after a few minutes, a few days, even a few years. A television picture or a movie might be lost forever, but your book is waiting.Collection: Time
Trade is much superior to piracy. You can rob and kill a man but once, but you can cheat him again and again.Collection: Men
No man ever raised a monument to a cynic or wrote a poem about a man without faith.Collection: Men
Beware of those who would use violence, too often it is violence they want and neither truth nor freedom.Collection: Wisdom
It is better to have no emotion when it is work. Do what needs to be done, and do it coolly.Collection: Work
To a fool time brings only age not wisdom.Collection: Age
I don't believe you know anything about a man like me or a country like this. It takes rough men, Miss Fair, to tame a rough country; rough men, but good men. Your father is in that class. As for you, I don't think you'd measure up, and you'll do well to leave it. You're a hothouse flower, very soft, very appealing and very useless...In the world you are going to, men want pretty useless women. They want toys for their lighte moments, and we have those women out here, too, only we have another name for them. We want women who can make a home, and if need be, handle a rifle.Collection: Country
When I was a small boy I often went to the woods to lie on the grass in the shade. Somehow I had come to believe the earth could give me wisdom, but it did not. Yet I learned a little about animals and learned it is not always brave to make a stand. It is often foolish. There is a time for courage and a time for flight.Collection: Lying
It is not enough to do, one must also become. I wish to be wiser, stronger, better. This--" I held out my hands "--this thing that is me is incomplete. It is only the raw material with which I have to work. I want to make it better than I received it.Collection: Hands
The key to understanding any people is in its art: its writing, painting, sculpture.Collection: Art
I really learned how to write from Robert Louis Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, and de Maupassant.Collection: Writing
A man in his life may have many teachers, some most unexpected. The question lies with the man himself: Will he learn from them?Collection: Teacher
The only thing that never changes is that everything changes.Collection: Never Change
Man needs so little... yet he begins wanting so much.Collection: Men
Revenge could steal a man's life until there was nothing left but emptiness.Collection: Revenge
A journey is time suspended.Collection: Journey
Books are precious things, but more than that, they are the strong backbone of civilization. They are the thread upon which it all hangs, and they can save us when all else is lost.Collection: Strong
The wind was cold off the mountains and I was a naked man with enemies behind me, and nothing before me but hope.Collection: Hope
You have to turn the faucet on before the water starts to flow.Collection: Writing
Out here you better have a gun, and a gun in the wagon ain't good for nothin'. I believe what the old Quaker said, 'Trust in the Lord, but keep your powder dry.Collection: Believe
Often I hear people say they do not have time to read. That's absolute nonsense. 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.Collection: Games
There have always been hard times. There have always been wars and troublesCollection: War