Quote

Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.

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
Born
Heart
Every
Believe
Men
Detective
Detectives
Believes
Bottom

More quotes by John Buchan

Image
He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.
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
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
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
Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.
John Buchan
Image
It was foreordained that I should go alone to Umvelos', and in the promptings of my own infallible heart I believed I saw the workings of Omnipotence. Such is our moral arrogance, and yet without such a belief I think that mankind would have ever been content to bide sluggishly at home.
John Buchan
Image
Without humility there can be no humanity.
John Buchan
Image
Civilisation needs more than the law to hold it together. You see, all mankind are not equally willing to accept as divine justice what is called human law.
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
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
What would you call the highest happiness, Lewie? he asked. The sense of competence, was the answer, given without hesitation.
John Buchan
Image
We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.
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
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.
John Buchan
Image
The vows we take in the holy place bind us till we are purged of them at Inanda's Kraal. Till then no blood must be shed and no flesh eaten. It was the fashion of our forefathers.
John Buchan
Image
It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.
John Buchan
Image
Any large-scale organization must lose some of the merits of its rudimentary beginnings. Quantity will have a coarsening effect on quality.
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
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