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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.

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
Loses
Scale
Quality
Scales
Must
Merit
Effect
Organization
Rudimentary
Large
Merits
Effects
Beginnings
Lose
Quantity

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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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[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.
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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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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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Without humility there can be no humanity.
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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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An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
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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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He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.
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We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.
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Leadership is only courage and wisdom, and a great carefulness of self.
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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 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 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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Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.
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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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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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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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I always try to suit my clothes to my company. It is the only way to be inconspicuous.
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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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