"The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things"
About this Quote
The subtext carries a politician’s instinct for persuasion. Buchan isn’t arguing God into existence with logic; he’s smuggling belief through a shared human experience: mortality. The sentence makes faith feel less like a leap and more like an optical adjustment that arrives with years, grief, and the narrowing of choices. It’s consolation, yes, but also discipline. If God “shines through all things,” then no corner of life gets to stay morally neutral - not work, not power, not history.
Context matters: Buchan lived through imperial confidence, mass war, and political upheaval. In that world, the claim that divinity persists “through all things” reads as resistance to cynicism - and a rebuke to the era’s faith in progress as a substitute for meaning. The line offers transcendence without escapism: the world remains the world, but it becomes transparent.
Quote Details
| Topic | God |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Buchan, John. (2026, January 16). The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-robe-of-flesh-wears-thin-and-with-the-years-106736/
Chicago Style
Buchan, John. "The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-robe-of-flesh-wears-thin-and-with-the-years-106736/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-robe-of-flesh-wears-thin-and-with-the-years-106736/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.
