Quotes from Walter Scott

All my life long I have been more melted by the distress under which a strong, proud, and powerful mind is compelled to give way, than by the more easily excited sorrows of softer dispositions.

T]he Normans, with the usual policy of conquerors, were jealous of permitting to the vanquished Saxons the possession or the use of swords and spears. These circumstances rendered the assistance of the Saxons far from being so formidable to the besieged as the strength of the men themselves, their superior numbers, and the animation inspired by a just cause, might otherwise well have made them.

The voice of some absent, or probably some deceased, relative was, in such cases, heard as repeating the party's name. Sometimes the aerial summoner intimated his own death, and at others it was no uncommon circumstance that the person who fancied himself so called, died

In civilised society law is the chimney through which all that smoke discharges itself that used to circulate through the whole house

Nay, we are authorized to believe that individuals have died in consequence of having supposed themselves to have taken poison, when, in reality, the draught they had swallowed as such was of an innoxious or restorative quality.

The honest heart that's free frae a' Intended fraud or guile, However Fortune kick the ba', Has aye some cause to smile. BURNS.

those who were intrusted with the command of the troops of the Republic in battle, were wont to resume the shepherd's staff when they laid down the truncheon, and, like the Roman dictators, to retire to complete equality with their fellow-citizens, from the eminence of military command to which their talents, and the call of their country, had raised them.

religious house called Campsie, the ruins of which still occupy a striking situation on the Tay. It

I am about to recount occurred during the last years of the 14th century, when the Scottish sceptre was swayed by the gentle but feeble hand of John, who, on being called to the throne, assumed the title of Robert the Third.

This same library is my den — the only corner of the Hall-house where I am safe from my … cousins. They never venture there, I suppose for fear the folios should fall down and crack their skulls; for they will never affect their heads in any other way... — Miss Diana Vernon

Ambition, policy, bravery, all far beyond their sphere, here learned the fate of mortals.

Her clear blue eye, which sat enshrined beneath a graceful eyebrow of brown sufficiently marked to give expression to the forehead, seemed capable to kindle as well as melt, to command as well as to beseech.

he was too proud a man to be a vain one.

should these tales ever become public, whether you have not given us a page of talk for every single idea which two words might have communicated, while

He was, besides, the child of a doting grandmother, whose too solicitous attention to him soon taught him a sort of diffidence in himself, with a disposition to overrate his own importance, which is one of the very worst consequences that children deduce from over-indulgence.

A ruin should always be protected but never repaired - thus may we witness full the lingering legacies of the past.

Faces that have charmed us the most escape us the soonest.

Hard toil can roughen form and face, And want call quench the eye's bright grace.

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

High minds, of native pride and force, Most deeply feel thy pangs, Remorse; Fear, for their scourge, means villains have, Thou art the torturer of the brave!

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

Look not thou on beauty's charming; Sit thou still when kings are arming; Taste not when the wine-cup glistens; Speak not when the people listens

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

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