Walter scott quotes

Without courage there cannot be truth, and without truth there can be no other virtue.

I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?

I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as it was said to me.

Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above: For love is heaven, and heaven is love.

Caution comes too late when we are in the midst of evils.

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.

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

Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.

I will tear this folly from my heart, though every fibre bleed as I rend it away!

Great talent has always a little madness mixed up with it.

Like the dew on the mountain, like the foam on the river, like the bubble on the fountain, thou art gone, and for ever!

Look back, and smile on perils past.

There is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine.

Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life.

What a strange scene if the surge of conversation could suddenly ebb like the tide, and show us the real state of people's minds.

A sinful heart makes feeble hand.

Chivalry!---why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection---the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant ---Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword.

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

Do not Christians and Heathens, and Jews and Gentiles, and poets and philosophers, unite in allowing the starry influences?

Each age has deemed the new-born year the fittest time for festal cheer.

The will to do, the soul to dare..

O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!

There are those to whom a sense of religion has come in storm and tempest; there are those whom it has summoned amid scenes of revelry and idle vanity; there are those, too, who have heard its "still small voice" amid rural leisure and placid retirement. But perhaps the knowledge which causeth not to err is most frequently impressed upon the mind during the season of affliction.

The half hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention... It was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me.

Tears are the softening showers which cause the seed of heaven to spring up in the human heart.

War is the only game in which both sides lose.

Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances!

What I have to say is far more important than how long my eyelashes are.

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

A good deal of philanthropy arises in general from mere vanity and love of distinction gilded over to others and to themselves with some show of benevolent sentiment.

Credit is like a looking-glass, which when once sullied by a breath, may be wiped clear again; but if once cracked can never be repaired.

Some feelings are to mortals given With less of earth in them than heaven.

Every hour has its end.

Nothing is more completely the child of art than a garden.

True love's the gift which God has given To man alone beneath the heaven. It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, In body and in soul can bind.

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

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

Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.

God forgive me for having thought it possible that a schoolmaster could be out and out a rational being.

November's sky is chill and drear, November's leaf is red and sear.

Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness.

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

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

Hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.

Certainly," quoth Athelstane, "women are the least to be trusted of all animals, monks and abbots excepted.

One or two of these scoundrel statesmen should be shot once a-year, just to keep the others on their good behavior.

Revenge, the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell.

If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors.

A fool's wild speech confounds the wise.

Affection can withstand very severe storms of vigor, but not a long polar frost of indifference.

God in his goodness sent the grapes To cheer both great and small; Little fools will drink too much And great fools none at all!

If you once turn on your side after the hour at which you ought to rise, it is all over. Bolt up at once.

O woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!

Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.

Marry in haste, repent at leisure.

Treason seldom dwells with courage.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land.

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.

Blessed be his name, who hath appointed the quiet night to follow the busy day, and the calm sleep to refresh the wearied limbs and to compose the troubled spirit.

Silence, maiden; thy tongue outruns thy discretion.

Chess is a sad waste of brains.

Heap on more wood! - the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We'll keep our Christmas merry still.

I was born a Scotsman and a bare one. Therefore I was born to fight my way in the world.

It is wonderful what strength of purpose and boldness and energy of will are roused by the assurance that we are doing our duty.

When true friends meet in adverse hour; 'Tis like a sunbeam through a shower. A watery way an instant seen, The darkly closing clouds between.

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.

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

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

As long as the Fates permit, live cheerfully.

Women are but the toys which amuse our lighter hours---ambition is the serious business of life.

The willow which bends to the tempest often escapes better than the oak which resists it.

Real valor consists not in being insensible to danger; but in being prompt to confront and disarm it.

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

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.

Cats are a mysterious kind of folk.

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

The lover's pleasure, like that of the hunter, is in the chase, and the brightest beauty loses half its merit, as the flower its perfume, when the willing hand can reach it too easily. There must be doubt; there must be difficulty and danger.

One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.

Where is the coward that would not dare to fight for such a land as Scotland?

The man who is deserving the name is the one whose thoughts and exertions are for others rather than for himself.

For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.

Sleep in peace, and wake in joy.

The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon. But, to be sure, if he lived for fifty years and then died, what would become of me?

Fortune may raise up or abuse the ordinary mortal, but the sage and the soldier should have minds beyond her control.

The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.

There never will exist anything permanently noble and excellent in the character which is a stranger to resolute self-denial.

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!

Greatness of any kind has no greater foe than a habit of drinking.

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.

A sound head, an honest heart, and an humble spirit are the three best guides through time and to eternity.

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.

He that follows the advice of reason has a mind that is elevated above the reach of injury; that sits above the clouds, in a calm and quiet ether, and with a brave indifferency hears the rolling thunders grumble and burst under his feet.

Blud's thicker than water.

Adversity is like the period of the rain. . . cold, comfortless, unfriendly to people and to animals; yet from that season have their birth the flower, the fruit, the date, the rose and the pomegranate.

We often praise the evening clouds, And tints so gay and bold, But seldom think upon our God, Who tinged these clouds with gold.

It was woman that taught me cruelty, and on woman therefore I have exercised it.

We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt.

One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name

He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.

Steady of heart and stout of hand.