Quotes from Sir Walter Scott

Craigengelt, you are either an honest fellow in right good earnest, and I scarce know how to believe that; or you are cleverer than I took you for, and I scarce know how to believe that either.

Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Morn of toil nor night of waking.

But there stands the sword of my ancestor Sir Richard Vernon, slain at Shrewsbury, and sorely slandered by a sad fellow called Will Shakspeare, whose Lancastrian partialities, and a certain knack at embodying them, has turned history upside down, or rather inside out.

A fool's wild speech confounds the wise.

Oh, many a shaft at random sent Finds mark the archer little meant! And many a word at random spoken May soothe, or wound, a heart that's broken!

Those who remarked in the countenance of this young hero a dissolute audacity mingled with extreme haughtiness ... could not yet deny to his countenance that sort of comeliness which belongs to an open set of features, well formed by nature, modeled by art to the usual rules of courtesy, yet so far frank and honest, that they seemed as if they disclaimed to conceal the natural working of the soul.

There is more sense in your language, Bucklaw, replied the Master, than might have been expected from your conduct - it is too true, our vices steal upon us in forms outwardly fair as those of the demons whom the superstitious represent as intriguing with the human race, and are not discovered in their native hideousness until we have clasped them in our arms.

The way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses grey, Seemed to have known a better day; The harp, his sole remaining joy, Was carried by an orphan boy. The last of all the Bards was he, Who sung of Border chivalry; For, well-a-day! their date was fled, His tuneful brethren all were dead; And he, neglected and oppressed, Wished to be with them, and at rest.

It is from the well of St. Dunstan' said he, 'In which betwixt sun and sun, he baptised five hundred heathen Danes and Britons - blessed be his name!' And applying his black beard to the pitcher, he took a draught much more moderate in quantity than his encomium seemed to warrant.

Everything is possible for him who possesses courage and activity,'' she said, with a look resembling one of those heroines of the age of chivalry, whose encouragement was wont to give champions double valour at the hour of need; ``and to the timid and hesitating, everything is impossible, because it seems so.

His knowledge of books, however superficial, was sufficient to impress upon their ignorance respect for his supposed learning;

Harp of the North, farewell! The hills grow dark, On purple peaks a deeper shade descending; In twilight copse the glow-worm lights her spark, The deer, half seen, are to the covert wending. Resume thy wizard elm! the fountain lending, And the wild breeze, thy wilder minstrelsy; Thy numbers sweet with nature's vespers blending, With distant echo from the fold and lea, And herd-boy's evening pipe, and hum of housing bee.

Lucy Ashton, in short, was involved in those mazes of the imagination which are most dangerous to the young and the sensitive. Time, it is true, absence, change of place and of face, might probably have destroyed the illusion in her instance as it has done in many others.

Sir Richard Glendale lifted the fatal paper, read it, and saying, 'Now all is indeed over,' handed it to Maxwell, who said aloud, 'Black Colin Campbell...

Teach self denial and make its practice pleasure, and you can create for the world a destiny more sublime that ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.

Proud Maisie Proud Maisie is in the wood, Walking so early; Sweet Robin sits on the bush, Singing so rarely. 'Tell me, thou bonny bird, When shall I marry me?' 'When six braw gentlemen Kirkward shall carry ye.' 'Who makes the bridal bed, Birdie, say truly?' 'The grey-headed sexton, That delves the grave duly. 'The glowworm o'er grave and stone Shall light thee steady; The owl from the steeple sing, 'Welcome, proud lady.

It is not fantasy's hot fire, Whose wishes, son as granted, fly; It liveth not in fierce desire, With dead desire it doth not die; It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, In body and in soul can bind.

I'll listen, till my fancy hears The clang of swords' the crash of spears! These grates, these walls, shall vanish then For the fair field of fighting men, And my free spirit burst away, As if it soared from battle fray.

The daylight had dawned upon the glades of the oak forest. The green boughs glittered with all their pearls of dew.

A moment of peril is often also a moment of 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.

Look back, and smile on perils past.

The step between time and eternity is short but terrible, and I have few moments to prepare for it.

I tell thee, proud Templar, that not 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.

The wild unbounded hills we ranged, While oft our talk its topic changed, And, desultory as our way, Ranged, unconfined from grave to gay. Even when it flagg'd , as oft will chance, No effort made to break its trance, We could right pleasantly pursue Our thoughts in social silence too