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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.

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
Good
Game
Would
Sort
Downed
Men
Games
Braver
People
Hate
Knife
Place
Knives
Ends
Fellow
Play
Fellows
Long
Ordinary

More quotes by John Buchan

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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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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.
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He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.
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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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What would you call the highest happiness, Lewie? he asked. The sense of competence, was the answer, given without hesitation.
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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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He who would valiant be against all disaster let him in constancy follow the Master. There's no discouragement shall make him once relent his first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.
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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
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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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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
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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.
John Buchan
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[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.
John Buchan
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Leadership is only courage and wisdom, and a great carefulness of self.
John Buchan
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The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.
John Buchan
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Most true points are fine points. There never was a dispute between mortals where both sides hadn't a bit of right.
John Buchan
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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.
John Buchan
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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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Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.
John Buchan
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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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That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.
John Buchan