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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.

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
Men
Realise
Life
Realising
Appetite
Lover
Peaceful
Sedentary
Lovers
Perils
Beginning
Obstinate
Quiet
Peril

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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 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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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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I always try to suit my clothes to my company. It is the only way to be inconspicuous.
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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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Most true points are fine points. There never was a dispute between mortals where both sides hadn't a bit of right.
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Without humility there can be no humanity.
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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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An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.
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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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Leadership is only courage and wisdom, and a great carefulness of self.
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London is like the tropical bush -- if you don't exercise constant care the jungle, in the shape of the slums, will break in.
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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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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.
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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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[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.
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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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That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.
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The book trade is a spiritual barometer of a nations well-being.
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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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