Quotes from Walter Scott

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.

there can, we think, be little doubt of the proposition, that the external organs may, from various causes, become so much deranged as to make false representations to the mind; and that, in such cases, men, in the literal sense, really see the empty and false forms and hear the ideal sounds which, in a more primitive state of society, are naturally enough referred to the action of demons or disembodied spirits.

adversity bends the heart as fire bends the stubborn steel, and those who are no longer their own governors, and the denizens of their own free independent state, must crouch before strangers.

Female forms of exquisite grace and beauty began to mingle in his mental adventures; nor was he long without looking abroad to compare the creatures of his own imagination with the females of actual life.

Honour is a homicide and a bloodspiller, that gangs about making frays in the street; but Credit is a decent honest man, that sits at hame and makes the pat play.

Such an institution could only prevail at a time when ordinary means of justice were excluded by the hand of power, and when, in order to bring the guilty to punishment, it required all the influence and authority of such a confederacy. In no other country than one exposed to every species of feudal tyranny, and deprived of every ordinary mode of obtaining justice or redress, could such a system have taken root and flourished.

she felt in her mind the consciousness that she was entitled to hold a higher rank from her merit, than the arbitrary despotism of religious prejudice permitted her to aspire to.

Yet, with a weakness of mind not uncommon to great criminals, he shrank from the thoughts of his own baseness and cruelty, and endeavored to banish the feeling of dishonor from his mind, by devolving the immediate execution of his villainy upon his subordinate agents.

You remind me at this moment," said the young lady, resuming her lively and indifferent manner, "of the fairy tale, where the man finds all the money which he had carried to market suddenly changed into pieces of slate. I have cried down and ruined your whole stock of complimentary discourse by one unlucky observation.

I should be rather like the wild hawk, who, barred the free exercise of his soar through heaven, will dash himself to pieces against the bars of his cage.

It must also be remembered, that to the auricular deceptions practised by the means of ventriloquism or otherwise, may be traced many of the most successful impostures which credulity has received as supernatural communications.

What!" said Bois-Guilbert, "so soon?" "Ay," replied the preceptor, "trial moves rapidly on when the judge has determined the sentence beforehand.

Nothing could be more gracefully majestic than his step and manner, had they not been marked by a predominant air of haughtiness, easily acquired by the exercise of unresisted authority.

My mind to me a kingdom is. I am rightful monarch; and, God to aid, I will not be dethroned by any rebellious passion that may rear its standard against me.

It is by giving fair names to foul actions that those who would start at real vice are led to practise its lessons, under the disguise of virtue.

Mientras la ambición y las ansias de poder gobiernen el corazón de algunos hombres, no habrá paz duradera en la tierra. La guerra, por desgracia, es condición humana.

E' fin troppo veroche i nostri vizi ci seducono con la bellezza delle forme esteriori, come la bellezza dei demoni, che i superstiziosi ci rappresentano a congiurare ai danni del genere umano; non si riesce a vederne la innata laidezza finchè non li stringiamo fra le braccia.

Courtesy of tongue, said Rowena, when it is used to veil churlishness of deed, is but a knight's girdle around the breast of a base clown.[]

He seems, in manner and rank, above the class of young men who take that turn; but I remember hearing them say, that the little theatre at Fairport was to open with the performance of a young gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage.—If this should be thee, Lovel!—Lovel? yes, Lovel or Belville are just the names which youngsters are apt to assume on such occasions—on my life, I am sorry for the lad.

I am not sure if the ladies understand the full value of the influence of absence, nor do I think it wise to teach it them, lest, like the Clelias and Mandanes of yore, they should resume the humour of sending their lovers to banishment.

we resign to civil society our natural rights of self-defence only on condition that the ordinances of law should protect us.

God of Jacob! it is the meeting of two fierce tides - the conflict of two oceans moved by adverse winds!

The education of our hero, Edward Waverley, was of a nature somewhat desultory. In infancy his health suffered, or was supposed to suffer (which is quite the same thing), by the air of London.

Scots wear short patience and long daggers.