“There comes a time to everyone when the world narrows for him to a strait alley, with Death at the end of it, and all his thoughts are fixed on that waiting enemy of mankind.”

—  John Buchan, book Salute to Adventurers

Source: Salute to Adventurers (1915), Ch. 24 "I Suffer the Heathen's Rage"

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "There comes a time to everyone when the world narrows for him to a strait alley, with Death at the end of it, and all h…" by John Buchan?
John Buchan photo
John Buchan145
British politician 1875–1940

Related quotes

Joan Didion photo

“I could not count the times during the average day when something would come up that I needed to tell him. This impulse did not end with his death. What ended was the possibility of response.”

Joan Didion The Year of Magical Thinking

Source: The Year of Magical Thinking

Kent Hovind photo

“Everyone agrees that world events are FRIGHTENING! There are wars, famines, plagues, wild weather, diseases, earthquakes, and financial woes everywhere! The world is in a MESS! Everyone seems to be watching, waiting and praying for someone-ANYONE to come and FIX THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS and “take over the world!” WHO can possibly fix this CHAOS? The Bible has the ONLY real answer. God created the world, He knows how it is SUPPOSED to run and HE alone can fix it!”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Source: What On Earth Is About To Happen… For Heaven’s Sake? (2013), p. 112-113

William Shakespeare photo

“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once. It seems to me most strange that men should fear, seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Variant: Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
Source: Julius Caesar

Gabriel García Márquez photo

“Each man is master of his own death, and all that we can do when the time comes is to help him die without fear of pain.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Kenneth Grahame photo

“Free! The word and the thought alone were worth fifty blankets. He was warm from end to end as he thought of the jolly world outside, waiting eagerly for him to make his triumphal entrance, ready to serve him and play up to him, anxious to help him and to keep him company, as it always had been in days of old before misfortune fell upon him.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows (1908), Ch. 10

Matthew Arnold photo

“If there ever comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

William Shakespeare photo

“Death, a necessary end, will come when it will come”

William Shakespeare Julius Caesar

Source: Julius Caesar

Samuel Beckett photo

“He who has waited long enough, will wait forever. And there comes the hour when nothing more can happen and nobody more can come and all is ended but the waiting that knows itself in vain.”

Samuel Beckett book Malone Dies

Malone Dies (1951)

Related topics