Quotes from Walter Scott

In love quarrels the party that loves the most is always most willing to acknowledge the greater fault.

Ambition is no cure for love!

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.

A rusted nail, placed near the faithful compass, Will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy.

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.

For Love will still be lord of all.

A few drops sprinkled on the torch of love make the flame blaze the brighter.

Love will subsist on wonderfully little hope but not altogether without it.

Love, to her ear, was but a name, Combin'd with vanity and shame; Her hopes, her fears, her joys, were all Bounded within the cloister wall.

Warriors! and where are warriors found, If not on martial Britain's ground? And who, when waked with note of fire, Love more than they the British lyre?

He turn'd his charger as he spake, Upon the river shore, He gave his bridle reins a shake, Said, "Adieu for evermore, my love, And adieu for evermore."

'Tis an old tale, and often told; But did my fate and wish agree, Ne'er had been read, in story old, Of maiden true betray'd for gold, That loved, or was avenged, like me!

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

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

Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the Shore of a dark Scottish lake.

He that climbs a ladder must begin at the first round.

Cutting honest throats by whispers.

The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.

War is the only game in which both sides lose.

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like young Lochinvar.

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, Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band, That knits me to thy rugged strand!

To all, to each, a fair goodnight, And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.

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

Welcome as the flowers in May.