Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Who is Louis L'Amour?

While researching a line for a monthly newsletter I'm writing, I turned to my trusty big book of quotations.  I've opened it hundreds of times and plagiarized (um, I mean borrowed) many wise sayings to pass along.

One name that keeps popping up is Mr. Louis L'Amour.  Never heard of him.
So, I looked him up.  This from our friends at Wikipedia:

Louis Dearborn L'Amour (March 22, 1908 – June 10, 1988) was an American novelist and short-story writer. His books consisted primarily of Western novels (though he called his work "frontier stories"); however, he also wrote historical fiction (The Walking Drum), science fiction (The Haunted Mesa), non-fiction (Frontier), as well as poetry and short-story collections. Many of his stories were made into films. L'Amour's books remain popular and most have gone through multiple printings. At the time of his death, almost all of his 105 existing works (89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction) were still in print, and he was "one of the world's most popular writers".

There you go.

Here are just a few of the quotes that I've come across:

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I've been nothing . . . but there is tomorrow.


- - -

Today, maybe I'll run to my favorite used bookstore and pick up a couple of those "frontier stories".   After all, "Nobody got anywhere in the world by simply being content."

Thanks, Mr. L'Amour





Carpe diem Life,
David Kuhn

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