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John Buchan Biography

John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, GCMG, GCVO, CH, PC (/ˈbʌxən/; 26 August 1875 – 11 February 1940) was a Scottish novelist, historian, and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation.

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John Buchan Quotes

Our sufferings have taught us that no nation is sufficient unto itself, and that our prosperity depends in the long run, not upon the failures of our neighbors but their successes.

Long, Nation, Prosperity, Running, Sufficient, Taught Us

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.

Divine, Divine Justice, Equally, Law, Mankind, Together

The sea has formed the English character and the essential England is to be found in those who follow it. From blue waters they have learned mercifulness, and they have also learned - in the grimmest of schools - precision and resolution. The sea endures no makeshifts. If a thing is not exactly right it will be vastly wrong.

Blue, Character, England, Right, School, Schools

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

Funny, Humor, Let, Nation, Run, Running

Most true points are fine points. There never was a dispute between mortals where both sides hadn't a bit of right.

Disputes, Fine, Points, Right, Sides

That is the supreme value of history. The study of it is the best guarantee against repeating it.

Guarantees, History, Repeating, Study, Supreme

Bethink you of the blessedness. Every wife is like the Mother of God and has the hope of bearing a saviour of mankind.

Blessedness, God, Mankind, Mother, Wife

Any large-scale organization must lose some of the merits of its rudimentary beginnings. Quantity will have a coarsening effect on quality.

Lose, Merit, Organization, Quality, Rudimentary

It struck me that Albania was the sort of place that might keep a man from yawning.

Albania, Keep, Men, Struck, Yawning

And where the deepest current crawls
Like thistledown the dainty fly falls.
Then from the depths a silver gleam
Quick flashes, like a jewel bright.
Up through the waters of the stream
An instant visible to sight
As lightning cleaves to sombre sky
A rainbow rises to the fly.

Cleaves, Fall, Lakes, Rainbow, Rivers, Thistledown

It's a great life, if you don't weaken.

Classic, Ifs, Life, Weaken

History gives us a kind of chart, and we dare not surrender even a small rushlight in the darkness. The hasty reformer who does not remember the past will find himself condemned to repeat it.

Chart, Darkness, Giving, Hasty, Past, Rushlight

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

Flesh, God, Shines, Shining, Wears, Years

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

Definitions, Men, Separates, Snob, True

Fortunately for mankind the brain in a life of action turns more to the matter in hand than to conjuring up the chances of the future.

Action, Brain, Hands, Matter

I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal.

Believe, Common, Distrust, Normal, Thing

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

Kind, Peace, States, Unknown

Civilisation is a conspiracy.

Civilisation, Conspiracy

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

Answers, Call, Given, Happiness, Sense

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.

Bring, Life, Push, Tell, Thinking, Wall

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John Buchan Biography

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