Scottish novelist & politician (1875-1940)
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.
JOHN BUCHAN
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Montrose and Leadership
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
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
Time, they say, must the best of us capture,
And travel and battle and gems and gold
No more can kindle the ancient rapture,
For even the youngest of hearts grows old.
JOHN BUCHAN
Prester John
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
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
A man's inhumanity to man is only surpassed by his ignorance of his fellow man.
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
There was never an army that did not accuse its enemies of barbarity.
JOHN BUCHAN
Witch Wood
Honest intention will not cure faulty practice.
JOHN BUCHAN
Witch Wood
The true mark of a king is not his power or his wealth, but his compassion for his people.
JOHN BUCHAN
The Path of the King
The law and the constitution are like a child's pants. They've got to be made wider and longer as the child grows so as to fit him. If they're kept too tight, he'll burst them; and if you're in a hurry and make them too big all at once, they'll trip him up.
JOHN BUCHAN
The Power-House
There is no merit in an empire as such. Extension in space does not necessarily mean spiritual advancement. The small community is easier to govern, and, it may well be, more pleasant to live in. If its opportunities are limited its perils are also circumscribed.
JOHN BUCHAN
Augustus
All life is a gamble, and every man must choose his own risks.
JOHN BUCHAN
Salute to Adventurers
Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.
JOHN BUCHAN
The Power-House
A great storm destroys much that is precious, but it may also clear the air and blow down trees which might have been obscuring the view and making our life stuffy, and reveal in our estate possibilities of development that we had not thought of.
JOHN BUCHAN
"A University's Bequest to Youth", 10 October 1936
Their politics are an opiate to prevent folk thinking.
JOHN BUCHAN
Castle Gay
In our modern world we have seen inaugurated the reign of a dull bourgeois rationalism, which finds some inadequate reason for all things in heaven and earth and makes a god of its own infallibility.
JOHN BUCHAN
A Lodge in the Wilderness
A falsehood, which may be pardoned if it is to save another, is black sin if used by a coward to save himself.
JOHN BUCHAN
Witch Wood
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.
JOHN BUCHAN
Prester John