Quotes from Sir Walter Scott

Cats are a mysterious kind of folk.

Each age has deemed the new-born year The fittest time for festal cheer.

Silence, maiden; thy tongue outruns thy discretion.

The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon. But, to be sure, if he lived for fifty years and then died, what would become of me?

Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!

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 honour or observation.

A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.

We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing as moonshine, compared with the education of the heart.

Heap on more wood! - the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We'll keep our Christmas merry still.

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

True love's the gift which God has given To man alone beneath the heaven: It is not fantasy's hot fire Whose wishes soon as granted fly It liveth not in fierce desire.

Adversity is, to me at least, a tonic and a bracer.

It is only when I dally with what I am about, look back and aside, instead of keeping my eyes straight forward, that I feel these cold sinkings of the heart.

I like a highland friend who will stand by me not only when I am in the right, but when I am a little in the wrong.

It is only when I dally with what I am about, look back and aside instead of keeping my eyes straight forward, that I feel these cold sinkings of the heart. But the first broadside puts all to rights.

The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow man; and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.

Adversity is like the period of the rain ... cold, comfortless, unfriendly to man and to animal; yet from that season have their birth the flower, the fruit, the date, the rose and the pomegranate.

"I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?"

To the timid and hesitating everything is impossible because it seems so.

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

Each age has deemed the new-born year. The fittest time for festal cheer.

Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth, When thought is speech, and speech is truth.

If you have no friends to share or rejoice in your success in life -- if you cannot look back to those whom you owe gratitude, or forward to those to whom you ought to afford protection, still it is no less incumbent on you to move steadily in the path of duty; for your active excretions are due not only to society; but in humble gratitude to the Being who made you a member of it, with powers to save yourself and others.