101 Quotes by John Buchan

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.

Without humility there can be no humanity.

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.

Civilisation is a conspiracy.

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.

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

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

I believe that every man has in his soul a passion for treasure-hunting, which will often drive a coward into prodigies of valour.

I believe that all wisdom consists in caring immensely for a few right things, and not caring a straw about the rest.