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We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.
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
Debts
Debt
Putting
Pay
Future
Past
More quotes by John Buchan
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.
John Buchan
That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.
John Buchan
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.
John Buchan
Any large-scale organization must lose some of the merits of its rudimentary beginnings. Quantity will have a coarsening effect on quality.
John Buchan
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
There may be peace without joy, and joy without peace, but the two combined make happiness.
John Buchan
Most true points are fine points. There never was a dispute between mortals where both sides hadn't a bit of right.
John Buchan
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.
John Buchan
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
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.
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It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.
John Buchan
I always try to suit my clothes to my company. It is the only way to be inconspicuous.
John Buchan
An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
John Buchan
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
Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.
John Buchan
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
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
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
Our sufferings have taught us that no nation is sufficient unto itself, and that our prosperity depends in the long run, not upon the failures of our neighbors but their successes.
John Buchan
Wise men never grow up indeed, they grow younger, for they lose the appalling worldly wisdom of youth.
John Buchan