Walter Prescott Webb Quotes

The real scholar must choose truth and somehow it is better if it is made so ugly that nobody could doubt its virginity.

The wild Comanche and Apache were no amenable to the gentle philosophy of Christ nor were they tamed by the mysteries and elaborate ceremonials of the church. The war-whoop was sweater to them than evening vespers; the crescent bow was a better symbol of their desires than the holy cross; and it was far more joyful, in their eyes, to chase the shaggy buffalo on pinto ponies than to practice the art of dry-farming under the direction of black-robed priest.

It would be very interesting to speculate on what the human imagination is going to do with a frontierless world where it must seek its inspiration in uniformity rather than variety, in sameness rather than contrast, in safety rather than peril, in probing the harmless nuances of the known rather than the thundering uncertainties of unknown seas or continents. The dreamers, the poets, and the philosophers are after all but instruments which make vocal and articulate the hopes and aspirations and the fears of a people. The people are going to miss the frontier more than words can express. For four centuries they heard its call, listened to its promises, and bet their lives and fortunes on its outcome. It calls no more...

Walter Prescott Webb’s The Texas Rangers, Robert Utley’s Lone Star Justice, and Mike Cox’s Wearing the Cinco Peso: A History of the Texas Rangers.