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James Buchan

James Buchan Quotes

Novelist

James Buchan is a Scottish novelist known for his historical novels and biographies. His works are often set against the backdrop of Scottish history, delving into the intertwining of individual fates with the ebb and flow of the times.

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Famous James Buchan Quotes

“The prevailing ideology of the modern west - which is political economy - is in the doghouse. Having failed to notice atmospheric pollution, the economists then frightened themselves with the sort of financial crisis they said they had abolished.”

Said Political Economy Modern Crisis West Financial Ideology Frightened Pollution They Said Economist Prevailing Financial Crisis Political Economy

Author:James Buchan

“The dividing line between wish and need was never clear.”

Needs Wish Lines Clear Dividing

Author:James Buchan

“Up until the Depression, recession had a moral character: it was supposed to purge the body economic of the greed and excess that attends a business expansion.”

Character Body Moral Economic Greed Excess Expansion Recessions Moral Character

Author:James Buchan

“Liberty in Islam is the liberty to be a Muslim, democracy likewise, individualism likewise.”

Liberty Democracy Islam Individualism

Author:James Buchan

“A century ago, petroleum - what we call oil - was just an obscure commodity; today it is almost as vital to human existence as water.”

Humans Today Water Existence Century Oil Commodity Obscure Human Existence Petroleum

Author:James Buchan

“Is there any purpose to translating poetry? A poem does not contain information of importance, like a signpost or a warning notice.”

Doe Purpose Information Importance Warning Translate Signposts

Author:James Buchan

“Economists, like royal children, are not punished for their errors.”

Children Errors Economist Royal

Author:James Buchan

“Financial crises are like fireworks: they illuminate the sky even as they go pop.”

Sky Crisis Financial Pops Financial Crisis Fireworks

Author:James Buchan

“Of all the failed technologies that litter the onward march of science - steam carriages, zeppelins, armoured trains - none has been so catastrophic to prosperity as the last century's attempt to generate electricity from nuclear fission.”

Has Beens Lasts Technology Century Train Prosperity Nuclear March Electricity Steam Carriages Zeppelins Fission Nuclear Fission

Author:James Buchan

“Saudi Arabia operates according to the belief that God made young men and women so utterly and completely without self-control that they must be physically segregated every moment of the day and night.”

Men Made Self Moments Young Night Belief Men And Women Young Man Self Control Day And Night Arabia Saudi Arabia Saudis

Author:James Buchan

“Profits in business always depend on the rate of interest: the higher the interest, the higher the rate of profit required.”

Interest Depends Higher Rate Profit

Author:James Buchan

“Since the attack on the United States on September 11 2001, and the US retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq, there must be few people who have not felt a twinge of nostalgia for the cold war.”

People War States Felt United United States Cold Iraq Nostalgia Afghanistan September Cold War September 11 Retaliation September 11 2001

Author:James Buchan

“All UK nuclear power stations should be shut down without delay.”

Should Nuclear Stations Delay Nuclear Power

Author:James Buchan

“Any new financial order for the world must tackle the three chief challenges of our age.”

World Age Order Three Challenges Financial Chiefs Birthday 60th Birthday

Author:James Buchan

“By pouring money and goods into devastated regions, foreign aid workers sometimes compound the disruption and debauch the survivors.”

Sometimes Workers Aids Regions Goods Survivor Compounds Pouring Disruption Devastated Foreign Aid

Author:James Buchan

“If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside.”

Ifs Passion Waiting History Periods Dispassionate Good History

Author:James Buchan

“Losing your capital is like losing your trousers. It is a real humiliation, and one not to be soon repeated.”

Real Losing Humiliation Trousers

Author:James Buchan

“Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue.”

States Virtue Claims Monopoly Arabia Saudi Arabia Saudis

Author:James Buchan

“The world survived the fall of the Roman empire and will no doubt outlast our own so much more splendid civilisation.”

World Fall Doubt No Doubt Empires Survived Splendid Civilisation Roman Empire Roman Civilization

Author:James Buchan

“We generally write best of what we ourselves have seen.”

Author:James Buchan

“Were there peace and justice in the Middle East, the Arabs would no more need their tinhorn dictators than they would their corpulent princes.”

Needs Justice Middle East Middle East Dictator Peace And Justice

Author:James Buchan

“Because bankers measure their self-worth in money, and pay themselves a lot of it, they think they're fine fellows and don't need to explain themselves.”

Thinking Needs Self Pay Fine Fellows Self Worth Bankers

Author:James Buchan

“For 50 years, nuclear power stations have produced three products which only a lunatic could want: bomb-explosive plutonium, lethal radioactive waste and electricity so dear it has to be heavily subsidised. They leave to future generations the task, and most of the cost, of making safe sites that have been polluted half-way to eternity.”

“Governments of rich countries spend some $6bn of tax money a year on disaster relief and development aid overseas, while each new earthquake, famine or tidal wave can attract 1,000 aid organisations, from the United Nations Children's Fund and Oxfam to the 'Jesus Brigades' of the American south and other charitable adventurers.”

“My belief, for what it is worth, is that city dwellers cannot understand the world. Insulated from reality by complex and expert systems of provision and police, baffled by fashion and spectacle, city dwellers can distinguish neither the sources of their existence nor the consequences.”

World Reality Belief Cities Existence Fashion Source Consequence Police Complexes Experts Provision Baffled Dwellers

Author:James Buchan

“Nature is not simply a technical or economical resource, and human beings are not mere numbers. To suggest that one can somehow align all the squabbling institutions of science, environmental management, government and diplomacy in an alliance of convenience to regulate the global climate seems to me optimistic.”

Humans Seems Government Human Beings Numbers Resources Management Institutions Mere Climate Environmental Optimistic Diplomacy Convenience Alliances

Author:James Buchan

“The truth is, of course, that history is not completed in modern commerce any more than philosophy is perfected in political economy. In other words, there is nothing timeless or God-given about filling stations and penicillin and plastic bags.”

Philosophy Political Courses Given Economy Modern Truth Is Bags Stations Plastic Commerce Timeless Filling Political Economy Plastic Bags Penicillin

Author:James Buchan

“The year 2008 was a reminder to those who had forgotten that there is such a thing as history and that the cycle of famine and feast in commerce, first identified in antiquity and well understood in the Middle Ages, was not suddenly abolished in modern times.”

Years Firsts Wells Age Modern Middle Understood Forgotten Cycles Commerce Reminders Middle Ages Famine Antiquity Modern Times

Author:James Buchan

“To give money to a woman - and here I must speak as a man - is to deny her special quality, her irreplaceability, and reduce her unique amiability to a commodity. Money takes away her name, while transforming her lover into a nameless customer of a market of appetites.”

Men Giving Names Speak Quality Special Lovers Unique Deny Customers Appetite Commodity Transforming Nameless

Author:James Buchan

“Whatever else it was, Adolf Hitler's short-lived regime was also a colossal industrial process by which the wealth and productive power of much of Europe was wrenched from its normal purposes and converted into a machine for killing.”

Purpose Process Wealth Normal Europe Machines Killing Productive Regimes Colossal Short Lived

Author:James Buchan

“At the heart of banking is a suicidal strategy. Banks take money from the public or each other on call, skim it for their own reward and then lock the rest up in volatile, insecure and illiquid loans that at times they cannot redeem without public aid.”

Heart Strategy Rewards Aids Locks Insecure Suicidal Banking Loan

Author:James Buchan

“Europe and North America, we are told, are less dependent on energy-intensive heavy industry than in the 1960s and 1970s. It seems we squeeze more GDP out of a barrel of oil than in those benighted days.”

Seems America Energy Industry Europe Heavy Oil Dependent 1960s Barrels North America Gdp

Author:James Buchan

“Even before he came to power in 1997, Gordon Brown promised to change the accounts to parliament from simple litanies of cash in and cash out, to a more commercial system that took notice of the public property the departments were using. This system is known as resource accounting.”

Simple Known Resources Accounts Property Department Brown Cash Parliament Accounting

Author:James Buchan

“In modern society, where most people live in cities, and where both needs and wishes are absolved through the same remote agency - money - the distinction between wishes and needs has altogether vanished.”

People Needs Wish Cities Modern Agency Distinction Modern Society

Author:James Buchan

“In rising financial markets, the world is forever new. The bull or optimist has no eyes for past or present, but only for the future, where streams of revenue play in his imagination.”

World Play Eye Past Imagination Forever Financial Streams Rising Optimist Revenue Bulls Financial Markets

Author:James Buchan

“It is time to end the western policy of malign neglect. It is in the interest of the whole world to help tackle the actual grievances in Palestine, Kashmir, and in central and southern Iraq, and to help the region out of its economic backwardness.”

World Ends Whole Helping Interest Economic Policy Western Iraq Whole World Regions Neglect Southern Palestine Grievance Kashmir

Author:James Buchan

“One of the admirable features of British novelists is that they have no scruple about setting their stories in foreign settings with wholly foreign personnel.”

Stories British Setting Settings Features Novelists Admirable Personnel Scruples

Author:James Buchan

“One of the consequences of the Iranian revolution has been an explosion of history. A country once known only from British consular reports and intrepid travelogues is now awash with historical documents, letters, diaries, grainy video, weblogs and secret police files of questionable authenticity.”

Has Beens Country Secret Known Revolution Consequence Letters Police Historical British Video Authenticity Reports Documents Diaries Explosions Files Iranian Questionable Secret Police

Author:James Buchan

“Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born revolutionary who is believed by most Arab and Iranian observers to be the inspiration of the attacks in New York and Washington, is the best known of the Islamic militants to have emerged in the past 20 years and the least difficult to fathom.”

Years Inspiration Past Difficult Born Known New York Revolutionary Islamic Observers Bin Laden Saudis Iranian Osama Bin Laden Fathom

Author:James Buchan

“Soaring prices for crude oil, falling production surpluses, wild speculation in commodities, a rush into the precious metals, turmoil in the Middle East, assertive oil producers: it is 1973-74 all over again, and at dictation speed.”

Fall Middle Productions Speed Oil East Producers Metals Middle East Commodity Soar Speculation Crude Turmoil Surplus Assertive Dictation Precious Metal Crude Oil

Author:James Buchan

“Suicidal violence is not the exclusive property of the Muslim world. Suicide bombings were a tactic of nationalist struggles in 19th-century Europe and Russia, the far east during the second world war and the Vietnam war, and in modern Sri Lanka.”

“The aircraft that blew up the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington conveyed several messages to the world, of which one of the least remarked is this: the Muslims of the world are suffering.”

World Suffering New York Messages Trade Aircraft Pentagon World Trade World Trade Center

Author:James Buchan

“The rise to prominence of the Saudi novel in Arabic is the great man-bites-dog of recent world literature. Saudi Arabia is a country without a free press, where European styles and forms are distrusted and where the female half of the population became literate only in this generation.”

Men World Country Form Literature Half Novel Generations Dog Style Female Presses Population Great Men Bites Arabia Saudi Arabia Saudis This Generation Free Press Prominence World Literature

Author:James Buchan

“The use of refined petroleum as fuel, which began in the 1850s, freed hundreds of millions of people from the toil of centuries, gave hundreds of millions more a life of ease and plenty, and, by allowing great cities to feed themselves from every corner of the world, multiplied the population of the earth fivefold.”

People World Use Earth Cities Millions Century Population Corners Plenty Ease Fuel Allowing Toil Refined Great Cities Petroleum Corners Of The World

Author:James Buchan

“The world dominion of western thought, forms of organisation, technology and military force is not God-given, nor eternal, nor greatly appreciated by the rest of the world.”

World Form Given Force Technology Military Eternal Western Appreciated Dominion Organisation Military Force

Author:James Buchan

“There are about 15 million Muslims in the EU. They face ignorance, insult and even persecution. They cannot be wished away. To impose Enlightenment freedoms is self-defeating. Anyway, the Muslims have their own enlightenment.”

Self Faces Millions Ignorance Enlightenment Insult Persecution

Author:James Buchan

“There are signs that the age of petroleum has passed its zenith. Adjusted for inflation, a barrel of crude oil now sells for three times its long-run average. The large western oil companies, which cartellised the industry for much of the 20th century, are now selling more oil than they find, and are thus in the throes of liquidation.”

“Viewed from a distance, or through the eye of the All-Knowing CEO of the Universe, the crash of 2008 followed the usual pattern. A long-lived boom driven by cheap credit, going back as far as 1982 (though subject to interruptions in the mid-1980s and 1990s, and in 2001), came to grief because of a rise in the cost of borrowing money.”

Long Eye Universe Grief Knowing Subjects Cost Distance Patterns Credit Driven Usual Crash Ceo Borrowing Through The Eyes Interruptions Borrowing Money

Author:James Buchan

“We read too much Shakespeare at school, and view our parliamentary politics as dynastic drama, in which an impatient crown prince frets at his long subordination and begins to scheme for the throne he knows he merits, was promised and has earned.”

Knows Long School Views Too Much Drama Merit Crowns Schemes Thrones Impatient Parliamentary Subordination

Author:James Buchan

“What holds an Arab leader in power is a mixture of violence and prestige. Both President Assad and King Hussein were felt to have defended Arab interests against the world. That, in the end, is more important than what they wear on their head.”

World Important Ends Felt President Interest Leader Violence Kings Hussein Mixtures Prestige Assad

Author:James Buchan

About the Author

Born: June 11, 1954
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 59

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