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

John Buchan

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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
Believes
Bottom
Born
Heart
Every
Believe
Men
Detective
Detectives

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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.
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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.
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Any large-scale organization must lose some of the merits of its rudimentary beginnings. Quantity will have a coarsening effect on quality.
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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.
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That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.
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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.
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I always try to suit my clothes to my company. It is the only way to be inconspicuous.
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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.
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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.
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An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
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The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.
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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.
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You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread, a sheet of glass. A touch here, a push there, and you bring back the reign of Saturn.
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[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.
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I am an ordinary sort of fellow, not braver than other people, but I hate to see a good man downed, and that long knife would not be the end of Scudder if I could play the game in his place.
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London is like the tropical bush -- if you don't exercise constant care the jungle, in the shape of the slums, will break in.
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There may be peace without joy, and joy without peace, but the two combined make happiness.
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Without humility there can be no humanity.
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He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.
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Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.
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