Home > Author > John Buchan
1 " The more doubtful the political outlook the fiercer will be the dogmas which men create and contend for. "
― John Buchan , The Marquis of Montrose
2 " The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there. "
― John Buchan
3 " It was strange how fear had gone,now that we knew the worst and had a fighting man by our side. "
4 " When a man comes out of great danger, he is apt to be a little deaf to the call of duty. "
5 " We can pay our debts to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves. "
6 " 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 , The Best Short Stories of John Buchan, Volume 1
7 " I get into a tearing passion about something I know very little about, and when I learn more my passion ebbs away. "
― John Buchan , Castle Gay (Dickson McCunn, #2)
8 " 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 39 Steps (Richard Hannay, #1)
9 " The secret belongs only to the Maker of good and faithful dogs. "
10 " 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. "
11 " 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 , John MacNab (Sir Edward Leithen, #2)
12 " 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 , Huntingtower (Dickson McCunn, #1)
13 " 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 "
14 " An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support. "
15 " The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them. "
16 " The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope. "
17 " In the same week he would harass an Under-Secretary about horses from the Army, write voluminously to the press about a gun he had invented for potting aeroplanes, give a fancy-dress ball which he forgot to attend, and get in the semi-final of the racquets championship. "
― John Buchan , The Power House (Sir Edward Leithen, #1)
18 " Well, she is my most beloved and adored kinswoman, and for her sake I would commit most crimes. "
― John Buchan , The House of the Four Winds (Dickson McCunn #3)
19 " He had just the same narrow head, and stubborn mouth, and honest, quick-tempered eyes. It is the type that makes dashing regimental officers, and earns V.C.’s, and gets done in wholesale. I was never that kind. I belonged to the school of the cunning cowards. "
― John Buchan , Mr. Standfast
20 " You find hate more among journalists and politicians at home than among fighting men. "
