John Buchan Quotes on Growth

7 quotes

  1. The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.

  2. To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education.

  3. 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.

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

  5. 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. But the alternatives which confronted him were empire or anarchy.

  6. We had our pride shattered, and without humility there can be no humanity.

  7. 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.

All John Buchan quotes