Scottish novelist & politician (1875-1940)
The secret of life is to find out what one really wants.
JOHN BUCHAN
A Lodge in the Wilderness
There comes a time to everyone when the world narrows for him to a strait alley, with Death at the end of it, and all his thoughts are fixed on that waiting enemy of mankind.
JOHN BUCHAN
Salute to Adventurers
The world is full of pleasant things, but the pleasantest of all is a warm hearth and a comfortable home.
JOHN BUCHAN
A Lodge in the Wilderness
Loyalty and religion have many meanings, and self-interest is a skilled interpreter.
JOHN BUCHAN
Midwinter
The world is full of mysteries, and the greatest mystery of all is the human heart.
JOHN BUCHAN
Midwinter
The spark once transmitted may smoulder for generations under ashes, but the appointed time will come, and it will flare up to warm the world. God never allows waste. And we fools rub our eyes and wonder, when we see genius come out of the gutter. It didn't begin there. We tell ourselves that Shakespeare was the son of a woolpedlar, and Napoleon of a farmer, and Luther of a peasant, and we hold up our hands at the marvel. But who knows what kings and prophets they had in their ancestry!
JOHN BUCHAN
prologue, The Path of the King
I always try to suit my clothes to my company. It is the only way to be inconspicuous.
JOHN BUCHAN
prologue, The House of the Four Winds
Civilisation is a conspiracy. What value would your police be if every criminal could find a sanctuary across the Channel, or your law courts, if no other tribunal recognised their decisions? Modern life is the silent compact of comfortable folk to keep up pretences. And it will succeed till the day comes when there is another compact to strip them bare.
JOHN BUCHAN
The Power-House
The true mark of a leader is not how many followers he has, but how he inspires them to greatness.
JOHN BUCHAN
The House of the Four Winds
The true test of a man's worth is not what he achieves in life, but what he overcomes.
JOHN BUCHAN
Salute to Adventurers
It is better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees.
JOHN BUCHAN
Huntingtower
The true test of a man's character is not how much he has, but how much he is willing to give.
JOHN BUCHAN
Huntingtower
I wondered whether the scientific modern brain could not get to the stage of realising that Space is not an empty homogeneous medium, but full of intricate differences, intelligible and real, though not with our common reality.
JOHN BUCHAN
"Space", The Moon Endureth
I never mind choler in a man if he have also honesty and good sense.
JOHN BUCHAN
Salute to Adventurers
Happiness lies only in a divine unrest; and if you are lapped in comfort you stagnate and miss it.
JOHN BUCHAN
A Lodge in the Wilderness
Truth's like a dollar-piece, it's got two sides, and both are wanted to make it good currency.
JOHN BUCHAN
The Path of the King
What do we mean by spiritual development? Surely, the broadening and deepening of the mind till it regards the world in its true perspective, and the strengthening of the character so that the will is a tempered and unerring weapon in the charge of a man's soul. And this end is to be achieved only by the exercise of the mind upon the largest possible manifold of experience, and by the conflict of character with the alien forces of the world.
JOHN BUCHAN
A Lodge in the Wilderness
Civilisation needs more than the law to hold it together. You see, all mankind are not equally willing to accept as divine justice what is called human law.
JOHN BUCHAN
The Power-House
The true test of a man's character is how he behaves when no one is watching.
JOHN BUCHAN
Midwinter
Without humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.
JOHN BUCHAN
Castle Gay