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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.

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
Things
Straws
Life
Consists
Caring
Rest
Wisdom
Passion
Right
Straw
Believe
Immensely

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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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Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.
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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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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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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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An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
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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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Without humility there can be no humanity.
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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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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.
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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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He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.
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The book trade is a spiritual barometer of a nations well-being.
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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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We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.
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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.
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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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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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Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.
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