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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.

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
Brain
Chance
Turns
Future
Conjuring
Action
Fortunately
Hands
Chances
Matter
Mankind
Life
Hand

More quotes by John Buchan

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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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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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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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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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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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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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An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
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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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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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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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He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.
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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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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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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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Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.
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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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There may be peace without joy, and joy without peace, but the two combined make happiness.
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[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.
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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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Without humility there can be no humanity.
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