The legendary tablets of the past.
—Walter Scott
As good play for nothing, you know, as work for nothing.
—Walter Scott
A lightweight, by definition, is a man who cannot assert his authority over the national press, cannot manipulate reporters, cannot finesse questions, prevent leaks or command a professional public relations operation.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Authority
Teach self-denial, and make its practice pleasurable, and you can create for the world a destiny more sublime than ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Self-Discovery
The chain of friendship, however bright, does not stand the attrition of constant close contact.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Friendship
The reason of the law is the law.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Law
Come he slow or come he fast. It is but death who comes at last.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Dying, Death
The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Adversity
Then, wearied by the uncertainty and difficulties with which each scheme appeared to be attended, he bent up his mind to the strong effort of shaking off his love, like dew-drops from the lion’s mane, and resuming those studies and that career of life which his unrequited affection had so long and so fruitlessly interrupted. In this last resolution he endeavoured to fortify himself by every argument which pride, as well as reason, could suggest.
—Walter Scott
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!
—Walter Scott
Topics: Discovery, Mistakes, Greatness, Failure
There are those to whom a sense of religion has come in storm and tempest; there are those whom it has summoned amid scenes of revelry and idle vanity; there are those, too, who have heard its “still small voice” amid rural leisure and placid retirement. But perhaps the knowledge which causeth not to err is most frequently impressed upon the mind during the season of affliction.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Religion
That man may safely venture on his way, who is so guided that he cannot stray.
—Walter Scott
Oh, why should man’s success remove the very charms that wake his love!
—Walter Scott
Topics: Love
Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Ambition
Courtesy of temper, when it is used to veil churlishness of deed, is but a knight’s girdle around the breast of a base clown.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Temper
A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass, will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy.
—Walter Scott
Dinna curse him, sir; I have heard it said that a curse was like a stone flung up to the heavens, and most likely to return on the head of him that sent it.
—Walter Scott
Adversity is, to me at least, a tonic and a bracer.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Difficulties, Adversity
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Deceit, Honesty
Good wine needs neither bush nor preface to make it welcome.
—Walter Scott
Topics: One liners
If you have no friends to share or rejoice in your success in life—if you cannot look back to those to 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 exertions are due not only to society; but in humble gratitude to the Being who made you a member of it, with powers to serve yourself and others.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Friends and Friendship, Friendship, Action
And they drank the red wine through the helmet barred.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Wine
This world is a dream within a dream; and as we grow older, each step is an awakening. The youth awakes, as he thinks, from childhood; the full-grown man despises the pursuits of youth as visionary; and the old man looks on manhood as a feverish dream. Death the last sleep? No! It is the last and final awakening!
—Walter Scott
Topics: Death, World, Dying
When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Goals, Indecision, Reason
No scene of life but teems with mortal woe.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Misery
Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can never confer real happiness; the evil consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, forever haunt the steps of the malefactor; while the paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Sin, Virtue, Guilt
Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Age, Life and Living
It is a great dishonor to religion to imagine that it is an enemy to mirth and cheerfulness, and a severe exacter of pensive looks and solemn faces.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Religion
Look back, and smile at perils past.
—Walter Scott
Topics: The Past, Past
Is death the last step? No, it is the final awakening.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Dying, Death
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Robert Louis Stevenson Scottish Novelist
- J. M. Barrie Scottish Novelist
- Hugh Blair Scottish Minister, Scholar
- Robert Burns Scottish Poet, Songwriter
- John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir Scottish Novelist
- Tobias Smollett Scottish Poet
- George MacDonald Scottish Poet, Novelist
- Arthur Conan Doyle Scottish Writer
- Thomas Carlyle Scottish Historian, Essayist
- Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey Scottish Judge, Critic
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