Quotes by John Buchan

“The more doubtful the political outlook the fiercer will be the dogmas which men create and contend for.”

“It was strange how fear had gone,now that we knew the worst and had a fighting man by our side.”

“When a man comes out of great danger, he is apt to be a little deaf to the call of duty.”

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

“This is all a tale of an older world and a forgotten countryside. At this moment of time change has come; a screaming line of steel runs through the heather of no-mans-land, and the holiday-maker c...”

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

“I get into a tearing passion about something I know very little about, and when I learn more my passion ebbs away.”

“Revolutionaries - true revolutionaries - are aggressive, ruthless, and generally seize the main chance, as William Henry Drayton did when he saw that stump-speaking was getting him nowhere. But def...”

“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.”

“The secret belongs only to the Maker of good and faithful dogs.”

“Here were we wretched creatures of men making for each other's throats, and outraging the good earth which God had made so fair a habitation.”

“It is a melancholy fact which exponents of democracy must face that, while all men may be on a level in the eyes of the State, they will continue in fact to be preposterously unequal.”

“The eyes were of a color which he could never decide on, afterwards when he told the story he used to say they were the color of everything in Spring.”

“There may be Peace without Joy, and Joy without Peace, but the two combined make Happiness.”

“According to your sympathy, you will take pleasure in your own happiness or in the happiness of other people; but it is always your own happiness you seek.”

“To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education.”

“If youre going to be killed you invent some kind of flag and country to fight for, and if you survive you get to love the thing”

“'What would you call the highest happiness?' Wratislaw was asked. 'The sense of competence ' was the answer given without hesitation.”

“He disliked emotion not because he felt lightly but because he felt deeply.”

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