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. – James Buchan
If good history is dispassionate history, it must naturally wait until the passions of the period subside. – James Buchan
The west has a great deal to answer for in the Middle East, from Britains belated empire-building after the First World War to the US and British policy that condemns modern Iraq to the material and social squalor of a half-century ago. – 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. – James Buchan