The Walking Drum

Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish it to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, "This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow.

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

A ship does not sail with yesterday's wind.

The mind is a basket . . . if you put nothing in, you get nothing out.

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 by deeds.

There are many ways of fighting. Many a man or woman has waged a good war for truth, honor, 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.

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

Yol Bolsun" (May there be a road) [Louis L'Amour}

Evil comes often to a man with money; tyranny comes surely to him without it. I say this, who am Mathurin Kerbouchard, a homeless wanderer upon the earth's far roads. I speak as one who has known hunger and feast, poverty and riches, the glory of the sword and the humility of the defenseless. Hunger inspires no talent, and carried too far, it deadens the faculties and destroys initiative...

A knife is sharpened on stone, steel is tempered by fire, but men must be sharpened by men.

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.

Can you see the future, Kerbouchard?" "Who would wish to? Our lives hold a veil between anticipation and horror. Anticipation is the carrot suspended before the jackass to keep him moving forward. Horror is what he would see if he took his eyes off the carrot.

Lie to a liar, for lies are his coin; steal from a thief, for that is easy; lay a trap for the trickster and catch him at the first attempt, but beware of an honest man. (said by the author to be a Somali saying)

He is a fool who will descend into a well on another man's rope.

Victory is not won in miles but in inches.

I learned then that many a victory is easier won with words than a sword—and the results are better.

Such are the amenities of social life, which oft makes a liar of the best of men.

The mind gathers its grain in all fields, storing it against a time of need, then suddenly it bursts into awareness, which men call inspiration or second sight or a gift.

If at any time your Prince should pretend your position with him is sure, begin from that moment to feel unsure.

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 artist 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.

Many a small man is considered good while he remains small, but let power come to him, and he becomes a raging fury.

Must one seek something? I seek to be seeking, as I learn to be learning. Each book is an adventure as is each day’s horizon.