Quotes from Walter Scott

Thou hast had thty day, old dame, but thy sun has long been set. Thou art now the very emblem of an old warhorse turned out on the barren heath; thou hast had thy paces in thy time, but now a broken amble is the best of them.

How nearly can what we most despise and hate, approach in outward manner to that which we most venerate!

O, the tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive.

Revenge is a feast for the gods!

Trade has all the fascination of gambling without its moral guilt.

Rebecca! she who could prefer death to dishonor must have a proud and powerful soul!

As he offered to advance, she exclaimed, Remain where thou art, proud Templar, or at thy choice advance!--one foot nearer, and I plunge myself from the precipice; my body shall be crushed out of the very form of humanity upon the stones of that courtyard ere it become the victim of thy brutality!

A moment of peril is often also a moment of open-hearted kindness and affection. We are thrown off our guard by the general agitation of our feelings, and betray the intensity of those which, at more tranquil periods, our prudence at least conceals, if it cannot altogether suppress them.

Hospitality to the exile, and broken bones to the tyrant.

T]he pure light of chivalry... distinguishes the noble from the base, the gentle knight from the churl and the savage;... rates our life far, far beneath the pitch of our honour, raises us victorious over pain, toil, and suffering, and teaches us to fear no evil but disgrace.

Thus do men throw on fate the issue of their own wild passions.

Thy resolution may fluctuate on the wild and changeful billows of human opinion, but mine is anchored on the Rock of Ages.

There is no better antidote against entertaining too high an opinion of others than having an excellent one of ourselves at the very same time.

It has often been remarked of the Scottish character, that the stubbornness with which it is moulded shows most to advantage in adversity, when it seems akin to the native sycamore of their hills, which scorns to be biassed in its mode of growth even by the influence of the prevailing wind, but, shooting its branches with equal boldness in every direction, shows no weather-side to the storm, and may be broken, but can never be bended.

I pretend not to be a champion of that same naked virtue called truth, to the very outrance. I can consent that her charms be hidden with a veil, were it but for decency's sake.

the worst evil which befalls our race is, that when we are wronged and plundered, all the world laughs around, and we are compelled to suppress our sense of injury, and to smile tamely, when we would revenge bravely.

I will but confess the sins of my green cloak to my grey friar's frock, and all shall be well again.

To augment their misery, a contagious disorder of a dangerous nature spread through the land; and, rendered more virulent by the uncleanness, the indifferent food, and the wretched lodging of the lower classes, swept off many whose fate the survivors were tempted to envy, as exempting them from the evils which were to come.

the seat of the Celtic Muse is in the mist of the secret and solitary hill, and her voice in the murmur of the mountain stream.

Nothing perhaps increases by indulgence more than a desultory habit of reading, especially under such opportunities of gratifying it.

T]hou knowest not the heart of woman... [N]ot in thy fiercest battles hast thou displayed more of thy vaunted courage than has been shown by woman when called upon to suffer by affection or duty.

having once seen him put forth his strength in battle, methinks I could know him again among a thousand warriors. He rushes into the fray as if he were summoned to a banquet. There is more than mere strength—there seems as if the whole soul and spirit of the champion were given to every blow which he deals upon his enemies. God assoilzie him of the sin of bloodshed! It is fearful, yet magnificent, to behold how the arm and heart of one man can triumph over hundreds.

Far better was our homely diet, eaten in peace and liberty, than the luxurious dainties, the love of which hath delivered us as bondsmen to the foreign conqueror!

I HAVE already hinted that the dainty, squeamish, and fastidious taste acquired by a surfeit of idle reading, had not only rendered our hero unfit for serious and sober study, but had even disgusted him in some degree with that in which he had hitherto indulged. He