Quote

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

John Buchan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

John Buchan
Age: 64 †
Born: 1875
Born: August 26
Died: 1940
Died: February 11
Barrister
Biographer
Former Governor General Of Canada
Journalist
Military Personnel
Novelist
Poet
Politician
Science Fiction Writer
Perth
Scotland
John Buchan
1st Baron Tweedsmuir
Lord Tweedsmuir
Life
Conspiracy
Folks
Silent
Civilization
Pretences
Quiet
Pretence
Comfortable
Compact
Modern
Modernism
Keep
Folk

More quotes by John Buchan

Image
[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.
John Buchan
Image
The world was arrogant and self-satisfied, but behind all this confidence there was an uneasy sense of impending disaster. The old creeds, both religious and political, were largely in the process of dissolution, but we did not realise the fact, and therefore did not look for new foundations.
John Buchan
Image
I always try to suit my clothes to my company. It is the only way to be inconspicuous.
John Buchan
Image
That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.
John Buchan
Image
Wise men never grow up indeed, they grow younger, for they lose the appalling worldly wisdom of youth.
John Buchan
Image
History gives us a kind of chart, and we dare not surrender even a small rushlight in the darkness. The hasty reformer who does not remember the past will find himself condemned to repeat it.
John Buchan
Image
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.
John Buchan
Image
I would have been content with any job however thankless, in any quarter however remote, if I had a chance of making a corner of the desert blossom and the solitary place glad.
John Buchan
Image
You see only the productions of second-rate folk who are in a hurry to get wealth and fame. The true knowledge, the deadly knowledge, is still kept secret. But, believe me, my friend, it is there.
John Buchan
Image
London is like the tropical bush -- if you don't exercise constant care the jungle, in the shape of the slums, will break in.
John Buchan
Image
Most true points are fine points. There never was a dispute between mortals where both sides hadn't a bit of right.
John Buchan
Image
Without humility there can be no humanity.
John Buchan
Image
I once played the chief part in a rather exciting business without ever once budging from London . And the joke of it was that the man who went out to look for adventure only saw a bit of the game, and I who sat in my chambers saw it all and pulled the strings. 'They also serve who only stand and wait,' you know.
John Buchan
Image
There may be peace without joy, and joy without peace, but the two combined make happiness.
John Buchan
Image
We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.
John Buchan
Image
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.
John Buchan
Image
I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest.
John Buchan
Image
In our modern world we have seen inaugurated the reign of a dull bourgeois rationalism, which finds some inadequate reason for all things in heaven and earth and makes a god of its own infallibility.
John Buchan
Image
I was a peaceful sedentary man, a lover of a quiet life, with no appetite for perils and commotions. But I was beginning to realise that I was very obstinate.
John Buchan
Image
But some love not the method of your first Romance they count it, throw't away as dust If I should meet with such, what should I say Must I slight them as they slight me, or nay
John Buchan