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

More quotes by John Buchan

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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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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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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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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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What would you call the highest happiness, Lewie? he asked. The sense of competence, was the answer, given without hesitation.
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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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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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Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.
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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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[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.
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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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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 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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He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.
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Leadership is only courage and wisdom, and a great carefulness of self.
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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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There may be peace without joy, and joy without peace, but the two combined make happiness.
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The book trade is a spiritual barometer of a nations well-being.
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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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