The Wisdom Of Louis L'amour

[paracowboy]

one of my favourite philosophers, historians, and story-tellers:

A good beginning makes a good end.

A wise man fights to win, but he is twice a fool who has no plan for possible defeat.

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.

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.

Knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value.

No memory is ever alone; it's at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.

No one can get an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process. 

To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder.

To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.

Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen.

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

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 colouring book. You must fill in the colours yourself.

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

Some say opportunity knocks only once, That is not true. Opportunity knocks all the time, but you have to be ready for it. If the chance comes, you must have the equipment to take advantage of it

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. Yet that will be the beginning

Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity and movement 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. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented by deeds

Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content.

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

Knowledge is awareness, and to it 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 on the wind, something seen in the stars, something that calls from the wastelands to the spirit

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Hate would destroy him who hated.

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

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

I have been nothing... but there is tomorrow

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

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

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

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

My future is one I must make myself

One learns to adapt to the land in which one lives

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

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

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

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

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

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

We accept the verdict of the past until the need for change cries out loudly enough to force upon us a choice between the comforts of further inertia and the irksomeness of action

A book is valuable not only for what it says but for what it makes you think, or causes you to remember. No matter what you wish to do or become there are books to teach you, help you, guide you.

Books are the building blocks of civilization and a people without books are a people without history, a people with no story older than the tales of the oldest man or woman.

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.

One never realizes how much and how little he knows until he starts talking.

There are good men everywhere. I only wish they had louder voices.

One who returns to a place sees it with new eyes. Although the place may not have changed, the viewer inevitably has. For the first time things invisible before become suddenly visible

To pursue a man effectively, it is best to begin with his thinking

The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you'll miss all you are traveling for.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I used to love reading his books. Don't know why I stopped. Guess I may have to start again.

For anyone that's thinking of reading him, be forewarned, he can be decidedly un PC. He's from a different time and if you have delicate sensibilities, you'll be offended. He falls into the down to earth rhetoric followed by Will Rodgers, Elmer Kieth and Jeff Cooper. If you don't like straight talk you won't like these guys, but they should be read anyway.

 

[paracowboy]

yup, crazy ideas like Equality, Freedom, Justice, Individual Responsibility, seeking out Knowledge, Accountability, fighting for Right, keeping your Word, Honesty, and such out-moded concepts.

 

[vonGarvin]

yup, crazy ideas like Equality, Freedom, Justice, Individual Responsibility, seeking out Knowledge, Accountability, fighting for Right, keeping your Word, Honesty, and such out-moded concepts.

Sounds like we need to return to such concepts. 
Equality vice equity
Freedom from as well as freedom to
Justice that is indeed blind
Individual responsibility vice societal responsibility
Seeking out knowledge vice being spoon fed
Accountablity vice litigation
Fighting for right vice fighting "if popular"
Keeping your word vice "you misunderstood what I meant"
Honesty, whether it hurts or not.

 

[paracowboy]

Personally, I believe children should be taught to see, to observe, and to subject what they have seen to analysis, and this in the earliest grades. Very young children will often learn a difficult subject easily unless someone tells them it is 'hard.' To me it also seems obvious that a child should be taught some methods of reasoning, methods of scientific investigation. Children have an innate feeling for logic and, given the opportunity, would learn quickly

Such instruction would be unthinkable in any country not a democracy, and if carried out in a democracy it might clear the air of a lot of loose thinking, loose public speaking, and the kind of questionable statements that fill the air during political and other campaigns. The first generations of parents who had such children would have a difficult time but would find their own thinking undergoing drastic change

We do not at present educate people to think but, rather, to have opinions, and that is something altogether different. Many of the political ideas that have disturbed the world in the past fifty years could not exist in such an atmosphere

 

[navymich]

Sounds like we need to return to such concepts. 
Equality vice equity
Freedom from as well as freedom to
Justice that is indeed blind
Individual responsibility vice societal responsibility
Seeking out knowledge vice being spoon fed
Accountablity vice litigation
Fighting for right vice fighting "if popular"
Keeping your word vice "you misunderstood what I meant"
Honesty, whether it hurts or not.

+1


I'm sure many of us still attempt to follow all of that and I personally don't think that we ever should have left from such concepts.  But many of the "young'uns" of today's society weren't raised like that and we seem like the so-called bad guys for those traits.

 

[vonGarvin]

Para
Very good way to think.  I like to believe that I let my kids form their own opinions on things (except bedtime, naturally) but on the important (and not so important stuff), I feed them facts and then press for opinions.  Some I agree with.  Others not.  In order to not be crucified for being non-PC, I won't say what some of the opinions they come to, but I silently nod and say "from the mouths of babes..."

 

[paracowboy]

Sackett Bantam Books.

Pa used to say that a gun was a responsibility, not a toy, and if he ever caught any of us playing fancy with a gun he'd have our hide off with a bullwhip. None of us ever lost any hide

"Boys," Pa used to say, "avoid conflict and trouble, for enough of it fetches to a man without his asking, but if you are attacked, smite them hip and thigh." Pa was a great man for Bible speaking, but I never could see a mite of sense in striking them hip and thigh. When I had to smite them I did it on the chin or in the belly.

Neither one of us had much trust in the peaceful qualities of our fellowmen. Seems to me most of the folks doing all the talk about peace and giving the other fellow the benefit of the doubt were folks setting back home in cushy chairs with plenty of grub around and the police nearby to protect them.

Folks who live sheltered or quiet lives, away from violent men, have no idea how they have to be dealt with. And I never was one to stand around and talk mean . . . if there's fighting to be done the best thing is have at it and get it over with.

But the thing I knew was that the best place to hide was in the mind of the searcher, for all men have blind spots in the mind. They rarely see what they do not expect to see, and their minds hold a blindness to what seems unreasonable.

There's folks around believe they can do anything they're big enough to do, no matter how it tromples on other folks' rights. That I don't favour. Some people you can arbitrate with ... you can reason a thing out and settle it fair and square. There's others will understand nothing but force.

Yes, ma'am. It is brutal. Only I never could see the sense in having folks look at your tombstone and say, “He was a man who didn't believe in violence. He's a good man ... and dead.” "I paused, peering at the trees opposite. “No, Ange, if the folks who believe in law, justice, and a decent life for folks are to be shot down by those who believe in violence, nothing makes much sense. I believe in justice, I believe in being tolerating of other folks, but I pack a big pistol, ma'am, and will use it when needed."

 

[paracowboy]

North to the Rails Bantam Books.

For the first time he found himself wanting a gun. He was a fool, he told himself. With such men as the Talrims one did not reason. One did not sit down and discuss their mutual problems, because there were none. These men were killers.

He was realizing how cheap are the principles for which we do not have to fight, how easy it is to establish codes when all the while our freedom to talk had been fought for and bled for by others.

If a man would not put restrictions upon himself, if he would not conform to the necessary limits that allow people to live together in peace, then he must not be allowed to infringe on the liberties of those who wanted to live in peace. And that might lead to violence, even to killing. The principle thing he had learned was that simply because he himself did not believe in violence was no reason that others would feel the same. In the future he must become more wary.

"Understand one more thing Mr. Chantry. 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." "We have the law." "But even the law cannot be in your bedroom at night."

 

[paracowboy]

The Cherokee Trail  Bantam

She was not one of those fools who believe they are invulnerable, that nothing could ever happen to her. Death had no respect for individuals. It came to the good, the bad, and the indifferent with equal indifference. She must consider all aspects, for the man who was her enemy was utterly ruthless, would kill her without a qualm ... or have her killed

Boone smiled. "Man is a predator. He's a hunter by instinct. I suspect he's taken his living from the wild animals and plants as long as he's been around. But he was a hunter first, bred to be a hunter."

"I don't believe that."

"I didn't suspect you did. But think on it. All the predators have their eyes lookin' forward to keep their eyes on the hunted. The game that's hunted has eyes on the side of their head so they can watch better. You take notice, ma'am, of the wolf, the lion, the bear, all animals that hunt others have eyes lookin' straight forward. So does man."

"I don't like to think of that. I hope we've gone beyond such attitudes. Isn't that what civilization does, Mr. Boone? Teach us to live together in peace?"

"I reckon that's the ideal, ma'am, but all folks don't become civilized at once. There's some of us lag behind, some of us who have to protect the rest of you civilized folks from those who haven't gotten beyond the huntin' stage. When a man comes at you with a gun or a knife or a spear, you don't have much time to convince him that he's actin' uncivilized, and he isn't likely to listen. That's when you yourself become uncivilized in a hurry or you die."

"I wouldn't want to kill a man."

"No decent minded person does, but if there's somebody up on that ridge with a rifle who is about to kill Peg's mother, you'd better kill him first. You see, ma'am, when a man sets out to rob and kill, he's strikin' a blow not only at you, at Peg, at Wat, and Matty here but at all civilization. He's striking a blow at all man has done to rise from savagery. "I'm not a scholar, but the way I see it is that men have learned to become what we call civilized men by stages, and every child growing up retraces that pattern during his lifetime. There's a time when youngsters like to play capture games, a time when they like to build play houses and huts, if it is only to put a blanket over a couple of chairs and crawl under it. There's a time when they like to make bows and arrows, dodging around hunting each other. Hide an seek is one way of doing it. After a while, he grows beyond that stage, or most of them do. Some folks just lag behind. They never grow beyond that hunting and hiding stage. They become thieves and robbers. Only a few years ago, a young man could go to war, and if he did enough looting or captured enough horses or arms, he could come home a rich man. Most of those who originally had titles over there in Europe had them because they were especially good at killing and robbing and were given titles for doing it in support of their king. Well, we've outgrown that. Or some of us have. The others are still lingering back there in a hunting, gathering, and raiding stage, and if you meet one of them alone in the dark, you'd better remember he's not a human being but a savage, a wild animal, and will act like one."

"So I must descend to his level?"

"If you want to be civilized, ma'am, you're going to have to fight to protect it, or all of the civilized will be dead, and we will be back in the darkness of savagery…you don't try to reason with a man who is trying to kill you, or else you will be dead, and violence will have won another victory over peace."

She had been thinking a good deal about Temple Boone's comments and had decided he was probably right. If civilization was to endure, those who believed in it must be prepared to strike back at the dark forces that would destroy it.

 

[paracowboy]

The Broken Gun Bantam

"In my dealings with criminals in the past one thing had become obvious, that all were incurable optimists, as well as egotists. They were confident their plans would succeed, and had nothing but contempt for the law and for the law abiding citizen."

The Daybreakers Bantam

"Now I was beginning to see where reading can make a man trouble. Reading Locke, Hume, Jefferson, and Madison, had made me begin to think mighty high of a man's public duty."

The Ferguson Rifle Bantam

Being a civilized, cultured human being was all very well, but I must hedge my bets a little or I would be a dead civilized, cultured human being. It needs two to make peace, but only one to make an attack. Humanity, I decided, must be tempered with reason, and reason with reality.

 

[paracowboy]

The Walking Drum Bantam

'Must one seek something? I seek to be seeking, as I learn to be learning.'

Reality itself is a shadow, only an appearance accepted by those whose eyes shun what might lie beyond.

'How dare you say such a thing?' he demanded.
'I dare say anything,' I replied more cheerfully, 'because I have a fast horse.'
Several of the students laughed, and one shouted, 'Well spoken soldier!'
'Have you no reverence?' the teacher demanded.
'I have reverence for all who ask questions and seek honest answers.'
'A philosopher!' laughed a student.
'A wanderer in search of answers,' I said, then to the teacher, 'You asked if I have reverence? I have reverence for truth, but I do not know what truth is. I suspect there are many truths, and therefore, I suspect all who claim to have the truth.'
Walking my horse a few steps closer, I added, 'I have reverence for the inquirer, for the seeker. I have no reverence for those who accept any idea, mine included, without question.'

'It is a theory of mine that as a seeker of truth for truth I should find my own answers.'

There is no curtain knowledge cannot penetrate, although the process can be slowed.

It is a poor sort of man who is content to be spoon-fed knowledge that has been filtered through the cannon 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.

…for there were those who wanted no teaching that might weaken their power.

'Blasphemy? Not unless it is blasphemy to seek the truth. No, I am a blasphemer, but something worse, I am an asker of questions.'

Yet the spirit of inquiry was alive here, and where it has a free existence, ignorance cannot last.

How much could I tell them? How much I dared tell them? What was the point at which acceptance would yield to doubt? For the mind must be prepared for knowledge as one prepares a field for planting, and a discovery made too soon is no better than a discovery not made at all.

There can be no order or progress without discipline, but authority can b quite different. Authority, in this world in which I moved, implied belief and acceptance of a dogma, and dogma is invariably wrong, as knowledge is always in a state of transition. The radical ideas of today are often the conservative policies of tomorrow, and dogma is left protesting by the wayside.

'You are your own best teacher. My advice is to question all things. Seeks for answers, and when you find what seem to be an answer, question that, too'

'One must conform and I conform badly.'
'Be a philosopher. A man can compromise to gain a point…even a rebel grows old, and sometimes wiser. He finds the things he rebelled against are now the things he must defend against newer rebels...be discreet, but follow your own mind. When you have achieved position you will have influence. Otherwise you will tear at the bars until your strength is gone, and you will have accomplished nothing but to rant and rave.'
'Compromise is an evil word.'
'Think a little, Julot. All our lives we compromise and without it there would be no progress, nor could men live together. You may think a man a fool, but if he is an agreeable fool you say nothing. Is that not compromise? Victory is not won in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later win a little more. A man should not compromise his principles, but he should not flaunt them, as a banner, There is a time to talk and a time to be still. If a wrong is being done, then is the time to speak out. Study, Julot gain prestige, and people will ask you solemnly for advice about things of which you know nothing.'
'I like not the sound of it,' Julot grumbled. ' I am a fighter. I fight for what I believe.'
'There are many ways of fighting. Many a man or woman has waged a good war for truth, honour, 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. The important thing is to know where you stand and what you believe, then be true to yourself in all things. Moreover, it is foolish to waste time in arguing questions with those who have no power to change..'

It is my weakness that I can never resist a path or a bend in the road, although usually the bend in the road when rounded only reveals another bend, as topping a hill only shows another hill before you. Yet I could not resist.

'Like many things, it only sounds profound, so waste no time upon it.'

'Are we not all slaves, occasionally? To custom? To a situation? To an idea? Who among us is truly free..?'

He had gathered about him what was considered by many to be the intellectual and artistic elite...actually a group of bored men and libertines who were glib-tongued, talking much of art, literature, and music but without any deep-seated convictions upon any subject aside from their own prejudices. Mainly concerned with their own posturing, they were creatures of fad and whim, seizing upon this writer or that composer and exalting him to the skies until he bored them, then shifting to some other. Occasionally, the artists upon whom they lavished attention were of genuine ability, but more often they possessed some obscurity that gave the dilettantes an illusion of depth and quality. In the majority of cases what was fancied to be profound was simply bad writing, bad painting, or deliberately affected obscurity.

'Think this of me. I am a man who must survive, and along the roads I have learned a little, as a man will.'
'You lost much in the attack of the Cumans. I do not think you lost all.'
'The goods of this world, Phillip, are soon lost. Fire, storm, thieves, and war are ever with us, but what is stored in the mind is ours forever.
I have lost even my sword. All that remains is what I have learned and some discretion in how it is to be used.'

'I shall simply ask. Many things are not done simply because they are not attempted.'

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 have 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 towards a final destination.

Yesterday I arrived hungry and in rags; today I was the confidant of kings; so can a man's fortune change. Yet power, riches, and the friendship of kings are but transitory things. Riches are a claim to distinction for those who have no other right to it. Ancestry is most important to those who have done nothing themselves, and often the ancestor from whom they claim descent is one they would not allow in the house if they met him today.
Great families were often founded by pirates, free-booters, or energetic peasants who happened to be in the right place at the right time and took advantage of it. The founder would, in most cases, look with disdain on his descendants.
To me the goal was to learn, to see, to know, to understand. Never could I glimpse a sail on an outbound ship but my heart would stumble and my throat grow tight.
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. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow. The wish, however, must be implemented with deeds.

'But I would rather try to mould my destiny, to shape it with these' - I lifted my hand - 'for we believe a man's destiny may be many things, although a way is prescribed, a man may change. It is interesting that so few do change.'

My ignorance was enormous. Besides it my knowledge was nothing. My hunger was learning, not so much to improve my lot as to understand my world, had led me to study and to thought. Reading without thinking is as nothing, for a book is less important for what it says than for what it makes you think.

 

[vonGarvin]

"Reality itself is a shadow, only an appearance accepted by those whose eyes shun what might lie beyond."
This reminds me of the Cave-Theory by Plato (in Meno, I believe).  Basically says the same thing, that what we perceive as reality is nothing more than shadows.  When exposed from the cave to natural light, most will not accept it (the truth) and return, with haste, to the Cave.

 

[paracowboy]

"Reality itself is a shadow, only an appearance accepted by those whose eyes shun what might lie beyond."
This reminds me of the Cave-Theory by Plato (in Meno, I believe).  Basically says the same thing, that what we perceive as reality is nothing more than shadows.  When exposed from the cave to natural light, most will not accept it (the truth) and return, with haste, to the Cave.

Not surprising, since Mr. L'Amour was able to quote Plato at will. He had a library so immense, it had walls of books that slid, or opened on hinges, to reveal another wall of books. And he remembered everything he read.

 

[54/102 CEF]

You`ve convinced me!

Down to Chapters I go on my trusty metal pony

http://www.montaguebikes.com/productcx.html

- his cousin is in the CAV http://militarybikes.com/military.html

2 more hours of Canada day - get out there and party!

 

[pronto]

Wow. Thanks Paracowboy. That brought back a lot of memories... I have kept all of my Louis L'Amour books. I dragged them from pillar to post, and any that I lost, I immediately replaced. I think I'll re-read them now. Funny, someone asked me once to what I attributed my success (limited as it is)... I told them to read books, any books, about anything. And then I added, read Zane Gray and Louis L'Amour, 'cause they'll teach you how to treat others.

Funny, out of all the authors, LL sticks right in there for me.

Pronto

 

[paracowboy]

On seduction:

"Yes, I believe I am gallant. If I made love to you, would I be less gallant?"

"Without my permission, yes."

"Oh, I should have your permission! I wouldn’t think of it otherwise."

"Do you believe for one minute, that I would allow you, a vagabond, a landless man, to make love to me?"

"Of course."

"Never…unless you take me by force."

"Don’t keep harping on that idea. It sounds too much like an invitation. No, no matter how much you expect me to, I shall not. I shall wait. The kisses of a woman who has been humbled are the sweeter for it...A true gentleman is at a disadvantage in dealing with women. Women are realists, and their tactics are realistic, so no man should be a gentleman where women are concerned unless  the women are very, very old, or very, very young. Women admire gentlemen and sleep with cads." ;D

 

[paracowboy]

"If you come to my bed, I shall scream for help."

"Madame, if I come to your bed, I shall not need help."

 

[ExSarge]

If you like Louis L'Amour books, try Bernard Cornwell. As a writer he is  cut from the same cloth.

 

[paracowboy]

On Commerce:

…tall, blond Vikings from the north, a fierce, piratical people, many of whom had become excellent traders.
“Sometime,” I told Suzanne, “I shall write about the relationship between piracy and trade. The one always seems to precede the other, and the most successful pirates have become traders, perhaps on the idea that is easier to defraud a man than to kill him. Trade is much superior to piracy. You can rob and kill a man but once, but you can cheat him again and again.”

The Walking Drum