Quotes from Walter Scott

those who have experienced your hospitality at night, have little occasion for breakfast in the morning.—

La vendetta, caro signore, la vendetta, la quale, èur essendo un peccato da gentiluomo come il vino, le orge, con il loro et coetera, è altrettanto poco cristiano , e non altrettanto senza effusione di sangue. E' meglio scavalcare il recinto di un parco per appostare una dama od una donzella, che sparare contro un vecchio.

It is ill arguing against anything from its misuse.

There are few more melancholy sensations than those with which we regard scenes of past pleasure when altered and deserted.

The gay world has been kept in hot water lately by the impudent publication of the celebrated Harriet Wilson, — — from earliest possibility, I suppose, who lived with half the gay world at hack and manger, and now obliges such as will not pay hushmoney with a history of whatever she

Colonel Talbot? he is a very disagreeable person, to be sure. He looks as if he thought no Scottish woman worth the trouble of handing her a cup of tea.

Of the rival league of Clan Quhele we have a still less distinct account, for reasons which will appear in the sequel. Some authors have identified them with the numerous and powerful sept of MacKay. If this is done on good authority, which is to be doubted, the MacKays must have shifted their settlements greatly since the reign of Robert III, since they are now to be found (as a clan) in the extreme northern parts of Scotland, in the counties of Ross and Sutherland. We

The White Lady replied,— Do not ask me; On doubts like these thou canst not task me. We only see the passing show Of human passions' ebb and flow; And view the pageant's idle glance As mortals eye the northern dance, When thousand streamers, flashing bright, Career it o'er the brow of night. And gazers mark their changeful gleams, But feel no influence from their beams.

Fear to do base unworthy things is valour;      If they be done to us, to suffer them      Is valour too.

All however agreed, that the spot was fatal to the Ravenswood family; and to drink of the waters of the well or even approach its brink, was ominous to a descendant of that house, as for a Grahame to wear green, a Bruce to kill a spider, or a St. Clair to cross the Ord on a Monday.

Besides, when a man of talent shows himself an able and useful partisan, his party will continue to protect and accredit him, in spite of conduct the most contradictory to their own principles.

mercy to a criminal may be gross injustice to the community.

Il tetro e monotono rumoreggiare dei flutti che venivano incessantemente a scagliarsi contro la riva rocciosa al di sotto, era per l'orecchio ciò che il paesaggio era per l'occhio: un simbolo di invariabile e monotona malinconia, non esente da un certo orrore.

Fools should not have chapping sticks'; that is, weapons of offence.

The Chiefs of Glengarry, Keppoch, and Lochiel, whose clans, equal in courage and military fame to any in the Highlands, lay within the neighbourhood of the scene of action, dispatched the fiery cross through their vassals, to summon every one who could bear arms to meet the King's lieutenant, and to join the standards of their respective Chiefs, as they marched towards Inverlochy.

If thou readest the Scripture, said the Jewess, and the lives of the saints, only to justify thine own license and profligacy, thy crime is like that of him who extracts poison from the most healthful and necessary herbs.

cantrip to ken wha suld wed me: and the monk said there

It is better to enjoy the good which God sends thee, than to be impertinently curious how it comes.

I wish to Heaven these scoundrels were condemned to be squeezed to death in their own presses. I am told there are not less than a dozen of their papers now published in town, and no wonder that they are obliged to invent lies to find sale for their journals.

I am the very child of caprice and folly.

Mr. Sampson, you forget the difference between Plato and Zenocrates.

Hunger and fear are excellent casuists.

Everything is possible for him who possesses courage and activity….and to the timid and hesitating everything is impossible, because it seems so.

it was Zenocrates, not Plato, who denied that pain was an evil.