Wealth & Money Quote by Louis L'Amour

Knowledge doesn’t just sit there looking impressive on a shelf; it’s an asset that either moves or quietly depreciates. Louis L’Amour, a writer best known for populist Westerns and self-made grit, frames learning in the language of trade: “like money,” it only becomes valuable when it’s spent. The line carries the moral swagger of his broader brand - competence earned the hard way, passed along in plain speech, meant to be used in the real world, not hoarded as status.

The metaphor does double work. It flatters the reader’s practicality (you’re not the type to collect trivia), while also scolding the possessive instinct that can attach to knowledge: the gatekeeping professor, the proprietary “expert,” the person who withholds insight to keep leverage. Circulation is both intellectual (sharing ideas, teaching, arguing) and social (letting information change hands so more people can act). In that sense, L’Amour anticipates an economy of attention before the internet made “sharing” a default verb: knowledge grows through exchange, because contact produces variation, correction, and new combinations. A fact told to one person stays a fact; tested in conversation, it becomes something sturdier - or gets replaced.

The “hopefully” is the tell. He’s not claiming a guaranteed upward curve; he’s acknowledging the risk of dilution, misunderstanding, or cheapened repetition. Circulation can inflate nonsense, too. Still, his wager is optimistic and very American: the best knowledge behaves like capital invested in other people, compounding through use rather than sequestered for purity.