Quote

Any large-scale organization must lose some of the merits of its rudimentary beginnings. Quantity will have a coarsening effect on quality.

John Buchan

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by John Buchan

Image
What would you call the highest happiness, Lewie? he asked. The sense of competence, was the answer, given without hesitation.
John Buchan
Image
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.
John Buchan
Image
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
John Buchan
Image
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
Image
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.
John Buchan
Image
The book trade is a spiritual barometer of a nations well-being.
John Buchan
Image
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.
John Buchan
Image
I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest.
John Buchan
Image
Most true points are fine points. There never was a dispute between mortals where both sides hadn't a bit of right.
John Buchan
Image
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.
John Buchan
Image
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.
John Buchan
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
John Buchan
Image
I always try to suit my clothes to my company. It is the only way to be inconspicuous.
John Buchan
Image
Wise men never grow up indeed, they grow younger, for they lose the appalling worldly wisdom of youth.
John Buchan
Image
London is like the tropical bush -- if you don't exercise constant care the jungle, in the shape of the slums, will break in.
John Buchan
Image
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.
John Buchan
Image
Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.
John Buchan