Quotes by John Buchan

About John Buchan:

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir was a Scottish novelist, historian and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

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 i...

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

All this was very loose guessing, and I don't pretend it was ingenious or scientific. I wasn't any kind of Sherlock Holmes. But I have always fancied I had a kind of instinct about questions like this. I don't know if I can explain myself, but I used...

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

He felt singularly light-hearted, and the immediate cause was his safety razor. A week ago he had bought the thing in a sudden fit of enterprise, and now he shaved in five minutes, where before he had taken twenty, and no longer confronted his fellow...

John Buchan

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

John Buchan

The best prayers have often more groans than words.

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

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

John Buchan

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

John Buchan

Prayer opens the heart to God, and it is the means by which the soul, though empty, is filled by God.

John Buchan

The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things.

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

Civilization is a conspiracy. Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences.

John Buchan

Without humility there can be no humanity.

John Buchan

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.

John Buchan

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

John Buchan

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

John Buchan

Author Bio

  • NameJohn Buchan
  • DescriptionBritish politician
  • AliasesJohn Buchan
  • BornAugust 26, 1875
  • DiedFebruary 11, 1940
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionJournalist; Politician; Author; Novelist; Soldier
  • AwardsKnight Grand Cross Of The Royal Victorian Order; Knight Grand Cross Of The Order Of St Michael And St George; James Tait Black Memorial Prize