Top 15 Quotes & Sayings by J. Frank Dobie

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer J. Frank Dobie.

Last updated on April 17, 2025.

James Frank Dobie was an American folklorist, writer, and newspaper columnist best known for his many books depicting the richness and traditions of life in rural Texas during the days of the open range. As a public figure, he was known in his lifetime for his outspoken liberal views against Texas state politics, and carried out a long, personal war against what he saw as braggart Texans, religious prejudice, restraints on individual liberty, and the mechanized world's assault on the human spirit. He was instrumental in saving the Texas Longhorn breed of cattle from extinction.

American - Writer | September 26, 1888 - September 18, 1964

Source: Wikipedia

The average Ph.D. Thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another.

J. Frank Dobie

When I get ready to explain homemade fascism in America, I can take my example from the state capitol of Texas.

J. Frank Dobie

Luck is being ready for the chance.

J. Frank Dobie

When he stood trembling with fear before the captor, bruised from falls by the restrictive rope, made submissive by choking, clogs, cuts and starvation, he had lost what made him so beautiful and free....One out of every three mustangs captured in south west Texas was expected to die before they were tamed. The process often broke the spirits of the other two.

J. Frank Dobie

The man for whom history is bunk is almost invariably as obtuse to the future as he is blind to the past.

J. Frank Dobie

Putting on the spectacles of science in expectation of finding an answer to everything looked at signifies inner blindness.

J. Frank Dobie

Great literature transcends its native land, but none that I know of ignores its soil.

J. Frank Dobie

Texans are the only race of people known to anthropologists who do not depend on breeding for propagation. Like princes and lords, they can be made by breath; plus a big hat-which comparatively few Texans wear.

J. Frank Dobie

Out of Frederic Remington's Sundown Leflare graved on the mantel. Sundown and another mountain man cooked and ate their supper. "Then," says Remington, "they sat down with the greatest philosopher on earth - the fire."

J. Frank Dobie

A man from Iowa or Illinois will say 'I'm from the Middle West'..a Georgian or a Mississipian may admit to being merely a Southerner...but no Texan, given the opportunity, ever said otherwise than 'I'm from Texas'.

J. Frank Dobie

The most beautiful, the most spirited and the most inspiring creature ever to print foot on the grasses of America.

J. Frank Dobie

No cowboy ever quit while his life was hardest and his duties were most exacting.

J. Frank Dobie

I have come to value liberated minds as the supreme good of life on earth.

J. Frank Dobie

The boundaries of culture and rainfall never follow survey lines.

J. Frank Dobie

The chief contribution made by white men of the Americas to the folk songs of the world ——- the cowboy songs of Texas and the West ——- are rhythmed to the walk, the trot, and the gallop of horses.

J. Frank Dobie

Top 15 Quotes & Sayings by J. Frank Dobie

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