Quotes from Walter Scott

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

Still from the sire the son shall hear Of the stern strife, and carnage drear, Of Flodden's fatal field, When shiver'd was fair Scotland's spear, And broken was her shield!

For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of Lochinvar.

In the lost battle, Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle With groans of the dying.

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, Come saddle your horses, and call up your men; Come open the West Port, and let me gang free, And it's room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee!

When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!—

I have heard men talk about the blessings of freedom," he said to himself, "but I wish any wise man would teach me what use to make of it now that I have it.

What skilful limner e'er would choose To paint the rainbow's varying hues, Unless to mortal it were given To dip his brush in dyes of heaven?

Rose with the odd consciousness of being free of my daily task. I have heard that the fish-women go to church of a Sunday with their creels new washed, and a few stones in them for ballast, just because they cannot walk steadily without their usual load. I feel something like them, and rather inclined to take up some light task, than to be altogether idle.

Women are but the toys which amuse our lighter hours---ambition is the serious business of life.

O Woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain coy and hard to please And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made When pain and anguish wring the brow A ministering angel thou!

It was woman that taught me cruelty, and on woman therefore I have exercised it.

Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.

I have sought but a kindred spirit to share it, and I have found such in thee.

Blessed be his name, who hath appointed the quiet night to follow the busy day, and the calm sleep to refresh the wearied limbs and to compose the troubled spirit.

In the wide pile, by others heeded not, Hers was one sacred solitary spot, Whose gloomy aisles and bending shelves contain For moral hunger food, and cures for moral pain.

My hope, my heaven, my trust must be, My gentle guide, in following thee.

Certainly, quoth Athelstane, women are the least to be trusted of all animals, monks and abbots excepted.

No word of commiseration can make a burden feel one feather's weight lighter to the slave who must carry it.

A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man's heart through half the year.

The lovers of the chase say that the hare feels more agony during the pursuit of the greyhounds, than when she is struggling in their fangs.

Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.

And my father!-oh, my father! evil is it with his daughter, when his grey hairs are not remembered because of the golden locks of youth!

The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored , and unsung. Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)