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

— Louis L'Amour

To live in a city, one must be larger than one's environment or enjoy belonging to the crowd.

— Louis L'Amour

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

— Louis L'Amour

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

— Louis L'Amour

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. ... Everyone has it within his power to say this I am today that I shall be tomorrow.

— Louis L'Amour

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

— Louis L'Amour

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.

— Louis L'Amour

What a man wants to do he generally can do if he wants to badly enough.

— Louis L'Amour

When a man is one of a kind, he will be lonely wherever he is.

— Louis L'Amour

Without books, we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever. Without books, we should very likely be a still-primitive people living in the shadow of traditions that faded with years until only a blur remained, and different memories would remember the past in different ways. A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.

— Louis L'Amour