John Buchan Quotes

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

~ John Buchan

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

~ John Buchan

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

~ John Buchan

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

~ John Buchan

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-man’s-land, and the holiday-maker claims the valleys for his own. But this busyness is but of yesterday, and not ten years ago the fields lay quiet to the gaze of placid beasts and the wandering stars. This story I have culled from the grave of an old fashion, and set down for the love of a great soul and the poetry of life.

~ John Buchan

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

~ John Buchan

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

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

~ John Buchan

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.

~ John Buchan

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.

~ John Buchan

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.

~ John Buchan

If you’re 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

~ John Buchan

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

~ John Buchan

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

~ John Buchan

The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them.

~ John Buchan

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

~ John Buchan

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

~ John Buchan

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

~ John Buchan