John Buchan Quotes

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into people, but to elicit it, for the greatness is there already.

I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest.

That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.

It's a great life, if you don't weaken.

To see what is right and not to do it is cowardice. It is never a question of who is right but what is right.

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.

There may be peace without joy, and joy without peace, but the two combined make happiness.

The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.

And where the deepest current crawls/ Like thistledown the dainty fly falls./ Then from the depths a silver gleam/ Quick flashes, like a jewel bright./ Up through the waters of the stream/ An instant visible to sight/ As lightning cleaves to sombre sky/ A rainbow rises to the fly.

An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.

Without humility there can be no humanity.

Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.

I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal.

He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.

Leadership is only courage and wisdom, and a great carefulness of self.

We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves.

I believe that every man has in his soul a passion for treasure-hunting, which will often drive a coward into prodigies of valour.

A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different.

The book trade is a spiritual barometer of a nations well-being.

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.

Wise men never grow up; indeed, they grow younger, for they lose the appalling worldly wisdom of youth.

[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.

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.

Peace is that state in which fear of any kind is unknown.

Civilisation is a conspiracy.