Quotes from Walter Scott

Both parties continued as violent as if they could have pleaded the distinct commands of Heaven to justify their intolerance

G]old is their god, and for riches will they pawn their lives as well as their lands.

Dinna curse him, sir," said the old woman; "I have heard a good man say that a curse was like a stone flung up to the heavens, and maist like to return on the head that sent it.

As every reader has experienced who may have chanced to be in such a situation, it is extremely difficult to maintain the full dignity of an offended person, in the presence of a beautiful girl, whatever reason we may have for being angry with her.

simplicity may be improved, but pride and conceit never. Well

Normans both; but Norman or Saxon, the hospitality of Rotherwood must not be impeached: they are welcome, since they have chosen to halt; more welcome would they have been to have ridden further on their way.

Peace is an inestimable jewel; but it will be soon snatched from those who are not prepared with heart and hand to defend it.

The Scotch, it is well known, are more remarkable for the exercise of their intellectual powers, than for the keenness of their feelings ; they are, therefore, more moved by logic than by rhetoric, and more attracted by acute and argumentative reasoning on doctrinal points, than influenced by the enthusiastic appeals to the heart and to the passions, by which popular preachers in other countries win the favour of their hearers.

Loch Tay; and

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.

Here he produced two immense folded packets, which appeared each to contain a whole ream of closely written manuscript. They had been the labour of the worthy man's whole life; and never were labour and zeal more absurdly wasted.

The abstract idea of a spirit certainly implies that it has neither substance, form, shape, voice, or anything which can render its presence visible or sensible to human faculties.

cared for no rogues but their own

Alas! how many ways does woman's affection find to work out her own misery!

It will be just like Duncan Mac-Girdie's mare,' said Evan, 'if your ladyships please, he wanted to use her by degrees to live without meat, and just as he had put her on a straw a day the poor thing died!

His suit of armour was formed of steel, richly inlaid with gold, and the device on his shield was a young oak-tree pulled up by the roots, with the Spanish word Desdichado, signifying Disinherited.

It only remained, he said, that the noble Chiefs assembled, laying aside every lesser consideration, should unite, heart and hand, in the common cause; send the fiery cross through their clans, in order to collect their utmost force, and form their junction with such celerity as to leave the enemy no time, either for preparation, or recovery from the panic which would spread at the first sound of their pibroch.

But there was in these eyes an expression of art and design, and, on provocation, a ferocity tempered by caution

In Waverley the reader is introduced to one of the great ideas of the modern novel: that reading has the power to mediate and deflect experience. Six

But the whole circumstances of time, place, and incident, combined at once to awaken his imagination, and to call upon him for a manly and decisive tone of conduct, leaving to fate to dispose of the issue. Should

Now I protest to thee, gentle reader, that I entirely dissent from Francisco de Ubeda in this matter, and hold it the most useful quality of my pen, that it can speedily change from grave to gay, and from description and dialogue to narrative and character. So that if my quill displays no other properties of its mother-goose than her mutability, truly I shall be well pleased; and I conceive that you, my worthy friend, will have no occasion for discontent. From

About the end of the American war, when the officers of Lord Cornwallis's army which surrendered at Yorktown, and others, who had been made prisoners during the impolitic and ill-fated controversy were returning to their own country, to relate their adventures and repose themselves after their fatigues, there was amongst them a general officer, to whom Miss S. Gave the name of Browne, but merely, as I understood, to save the inconvenience of introducing a nameless agent in the narrative.

And see ye not that braid braid road That lies across that lily leven? That is the path of wickedness Though some call it the road to heaven

It was a reign of minority, when the strongest had the best right, and when acts of usurpation were frequent amongst those who had much power and little conscience.