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.…

— John Buchan

You think that a wall as solid as the earth separates civilization from barbarism. I tell you the division is a thread,…

— John Buchan

“The men who knew that he knew what he knew had found him”

— John Buchan

“I began to get really keen, for every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.”

— John Buchan

“How will you deal with him?" Belses asked. Jock lifted a brawny fist and regarded it lovingly. "Knock him out-- truss him…

— John Buchan

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

— John Buchan

You see only the productions of second-rate folk who are in a hurry to get wealth and fame. The true knowledge, the…

— John Buchan

I always try to suit my clothes to my company. It is the only way to be inconspicuous.

— John Buchan

“But let none, he added, pray to have the full music; for it will make him who hears it a footsore traveller…

— John Buchan

“though I was afraid of many things, the thing I feared most mortally was being afraid. I”

— John Buchan

[W]ithout humour you cannot run a sweetie-shop, let alone a nation.

— John Buchan

I was a peaceful sedentary man, a lover of a quiet life, with no appetite for perils and commotions. But I was…

— John Buchan

In our modern world we have seen inaugurated the reign of a dull bourgeois rationalism, which finds some inadequate reason for all…

— John Buchan

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

— John Buchan

“Most people are a little scared at new things ... You want a bigger heart to face danger which you go out…

— John Buchan

Without humility there can be no humanity.

— John Buchan

You may hear people say that submarines have done away with the battleship, and that aircraft have annulled the mastery of the…

— John Buchan

A fool tries to look different: a clever man looks the same and is different.

— John Buchan

The world was arrogant and self-satisfied, but behind all this confidence there was an uneasy sense of impending disaster. The old creeds,…

— John Buchan

Pessimism is the one ism which kills the soul.

— John Buchan

“To spend your days on such work when the world is chockful of amusing things. Life goes roaring by and you only…

— John Buchan

“I skumringen kom mannen hennes tilbake fra heiene. Det var en mager kjempe som tok ett skritt der andre dødelige trengte tre.”

— John Buchan

To see what is right and not to do it is cowardice. It is never a question of who is right but…

— John Buchan

“I'm an economical soul, and if I'm going to be hanged I want a good stake for my neck.”

— John Buchan

Our sufferings have taught us that no nation is sufficient unto itself, and that our prosperity depends in the long run, not…

— John Buchan