John Buchan quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by John Buchan

John Buchan Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from John Buchan on Wise Famous Quotes.

I get into a tearing passion about something I know very little about, and when I learn more my passion ebbs away.

I'm an economical soul, and if I'm going to be hanged I want a good stake for my neck.

London is like the tropical bush
if you don't exercise constant care the jungle, in the shape of the slums, will break in.

Prayer opens the heart to God, and it is the means by which the soul, though empty, is filled by God.

We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.

A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different.

Leadership is only courage and wisdom, and a great carefulness of self.

Young girls passed me with romance still in their eyes, and others, a little older, with the romance dead.

He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.

Fortunately for mankind the brain in a life of action turns more to the matter in hand than to conjuring up the chances of the future.

Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.

I believe that every man has in his soul a passion for treasure-hunting, which will often drive a coward into prodigies of valour.

Pessimism is the one ism which kills the soul.

[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.

It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.

It was strange how fear had gone,now that we knew the worst and had a fighting man by our side.

I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal.

The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things.

The best prayers have often more groans than words.

Peace is that state in which fear of any kind is unknown.

I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest.

When a man comes out of great danger, he is apt to be a little deaf to the call of duty.

To spend your days on such work when the world is chockful of amusing things. Life goes roaring by and you only hear the echo in your stuffy rooms.

An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.

Civilisation is a conspiracy.

I began to get really keen, for every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.

Wise men never grow up; indeed, they grow younger, for they lose the appalling worldly wisdom of youth.

By God!' he whispered, drawing his breath in sharply, 'it is all pure Rider Haggard and Conan Doyle.

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.

The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.

That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.

The secret belongs only to the Maker of good and faithful dogs.

What would you call the highest happiness? Wratislaw was asked. The sense of competence, was the answer, given without hesitation.

There may be Peace without Joy, and Joy without Peace, but the two combined make Happiness.

The book trade is a spiritual barometer of a nations well-being.

Most true points are fine points. There never was a dispute between mortals where both sides hadn't a bit of right.

Here were we wretched creatures of men making for each other's throats, and outraging the good earth which God had made so fair a habitation.

The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them.

The more doubtful the political outlook the fiercer will be the dogmas which men create and contend for.

To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education.

It was a soft breathless June morning, with a promise of sultriness later ...

The eyes were of a color which he could never decide on, afterwards when he told the story he used to say they were the color of everything in Spring.

Without humility there can be no humanity.

Bethink you of the blessedness. Every wife is like the Mother of God and has the hope of bearing a saviour of mankind.

If you're going to be killed you invent some kind of flag and country to fight for, and if you survive you get to love the thing

I always try to suit my clothes to my company. It is the only way to be inconspicuous.

Any large-scale organization must lose some of the merits of its rudimentary beginnings. Quantity will have a coarsening effect on quality.