Walter Scott Quotes

Lightly from fair to fair he flew, And loved to plead, lament, and sue; Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain, For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.

The chain of friendship, however bright, does not stand the attrition of constant close contact.

For deadly fear can time outgo, and blanch at once the hair.

We are like the herb which flourisheth most when it is most trampled on.

My foot is on my native heath, and my name is MacGregor.

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like young Lochinvar.

A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.

Sensibility is nature's celestial spring.

For Love will still be lord of all.

I am she, O most bucolical juvenal, under whose charge are placed the milky mothers of the herd.

...crystal and hearts would lose all their merit in the world if it were not for their fragility.

I did not myself set a high estimation on wealth, and had the affectation of most young men of lively imagination, who suppose that they can better dispense with the possession of money, than resign their time and faculties to the labour necessary to acquire it.

O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood; Land of the mountain and the flood!

Independently of the curious circumstance that such tales should be found existing in very different countries and languages, which augurs a greater poverty of human invention than we would have expected, there is also a sort of wild fairy interest in them, which makes me think them fully better adapted to awaken the imagination and soften the heart of childhood than the good-boy stories which have been in later years composed for them.

Covetousness bursts the sack and spills the grain.

Ridicule, the weapon of all others most feared by enthusiasts of every description, and which from its predominance over such minds, often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble.

As good play for nothing, you know, as work for nothing.

Chess is a sad waste of brains.

Treason seldom dwells with courage.

Hurry no man's cattle; you may come to own a donkey yourself

The way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses gray, Seemed to have know a better day.

A glass of good wine is a gracious creature, and reconciles poor mortality to itself and that is what few things can do.

Vacant heart, and hand, and eye, Easy live and quiet die.

Time rolls his ceaseless course.

It is the privilege of tale-tellers to open their story in an inn, the free rendezvous of all travellers, and where the humour of each displays itself, without ceremony or restraint.

To the timid and hesitating everything is impossible because it seems so.

Many a law, many a commandment have I broken, but my word never.

Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasure, and you can create for the world a destiny more sublime that ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.

All is possible for those who dare to die!

Cats are a very mysterious kind of folk. There is always more passing in their minds than we are aware of.

Call it not vain: they do not err Who say that when the poet dies Mute Nature mourns her worshipper, And celebrates his obsequies.

In man's most dark extremity Oft succour dawns from Heaven.

Besides, Rose Bradwardine, beautiful and amiable as we have described her, had not precisely the sort of beauty or merit which captivates a romantic imagination in early youth. She was too frank, too confiding, too kind; amiable qualities, undoubtedly, but destructive of the marvellous, with which a youth of imagination delights to dress the empress of his affections.

Meat eaten without either mirth or music is ill of digestion.

Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand!

I like a highland friend who will stand by me not only when I am in the right, but when I am a little in the wrong.

Whose lenient sorrows find relief, whose joys are chastened by their grief.

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung.

Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!

The rose is fairest when 't is budding new, And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears. The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew, And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.

The pith of conversation does not consist in exhibiting your own superior knowledge on matters of small consequence, but in enlarging, improving and correcting the information you possess by the authority of others.

A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man's heart through half the year.

Dear to me is my bonnie white steed; Oft has he helped me at pinch of need.

The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-men; and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.

Hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.

When thinking about companions gone, we feel ourselves doubly alone.

It is more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle.

A fool's wild speech confounds the wise.