John Buchan

Also known as Major John Buchan

Died: December 15, 1922

Family

Blanche Ellen Shawspouse

Also known as Major John Buchan

Notable quotes

“The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.”
— Montrose and Leadership (1930), p 24; republished in Men and Deeds (1977)
“'There's a queer performance going on in the other world,' he said. 'It's unbelievable. I never dreamed of such a thing. I — I don't quite know how to put it, and I don't know how to explain it, but — but I am becoming aware that there are other beings — other minds — moving in Space besides mine.'”
— "Space"
“I must get off for a bit or I'll bonnet Joggleberry or get up and propose a national monument to Guy Fawkes or something silly.”
— Ch. 1 "Beginning of the Wild-Goose Chase"
“Her voice had a thrill in it like music, frosty music.”
— Prologue
“Mrs. Brisbane-Brown was a relic, but only the unthinking would have called her a snob. For snobbishness implies some sense of insecurity, and she was perfectly secure.”
— Ch. 6
“I have heard an atheist defined as a man who had no invisible means of support.”
— A play on words commonly used referring to vagrants or paupers as having "no visible means of support" financially, speaking to the Law Society of Upper Canada (21 February 1936); published in Canadian Occasions (1940), p. 201. Buchan's source for this definition remains unknown. The witticism was repeated by Harry Emerson Fosdick in his On Being a Real Person (1943), ch. 1, with due acknowledgement to Buchan, and was again used by Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in Look magazine (December 14, 1955). The credit for this line is therefore often wrongly given to Fosdick or to Sheen. Credit has also been given to the conductor Walter Damrosch (1862-1950).

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.