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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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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
Bring
Solid
Tell
Division
Saturn
Earth
Glass
Barbarism
Back
Push
Sheet
Think
Glasses
Separates
Thinking
Touch
Sheets
Life
Civilization
Reign
Wall
Thread

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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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Wise men never grow up indeed, they grow younger, for they lose the appalling worldly wisdom of youth.
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He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.
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[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.
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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.
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I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest.
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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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An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
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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.
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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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Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.
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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 book trade is a spiritual barometer of a nations well-being.
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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.
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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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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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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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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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Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.
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