Cause and effect, the riddle of all history, is a particular devil in financial history and never more so than today, where entire classes of security are collapsing not on public exchanges and stock-tickers but because there are no markets to establish prices this side of nothing. – 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. – James Buchan
Saudi Arabia is a puritanical state that claims a monopoly of wisdom and virtue. – James Buchan
If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside. – James Buchan
A boy who hears a lesson in history ended by the beauty of peace, and how Napoleon brought ruin upon the world and that he should be forever cursed, will not long have much confidence in his teacher. He wants to hear more about the fighting and less about the peace negotiations. – William Lee Howard, Peace, Dolls and Pugnacity