“Oh, poverty parts good company.”
Source: The Abbot, Complete: Scott's Works Vol.19
“Thou and I are but the blind instruments of some irresistible fatality, that hurries us along, like goodly vessels driving before the storm, which are dashed against each other, and so perish.”
Source: The waverly novels
“I was not always a man of woe.”
Source: The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott
“Here eglantine embalm'd the air, Hawthorne and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale, and violet flower, Found in each cliff a narrow bower; Fox-glove and nightshade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Group'd their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain.”
Source: The Poetical Works: Lady of the lake
“Earth walks on Earth, Glittering in gold; Earth goes to Earth, Sooner than it wold; Earth builds on Earth, Palaces and towers; Earth says to Earth, Soon, all shall be ours.”
“Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, morn of toil, nor night of waking.”
Source: The Complete Works of Sir Walter Scott: With a Biography, and His Last Additions and Illustrations
“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 Israel, of the Lord belov'd, Out of the land of bondage came, Her fathers' God before her mov'd, An awful guide in smoke and flame.”
Source: Ivanhoe: a romance
“The sun never sets on the immense empire of Charles V.”
Source: The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of the French: With a Preliminary View of the French Revolution
“Merrily, merrily goes the bark On a breeze from the northward free, So shoots through the morning sky the lark, Or the swan through the summer sea.”
Source: Poetical works
“Warriors! and where are warriors found, If not on martial Britain's ground? And who, when waked with note of fire, Love more than they the British lyre?”
Source: Poetical works
“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!”
“Blud's thicker than water.”
“Some touch of Nature's genial glow.”
Source: The poetical works of Sir ---
“The tear, down childhood's cheek that flows, Is like the dewdrop on the rose; When next the summer breeze comes by And waves the bush, the flower is dry.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart
“Spur not an unbroken horse; put not your plowshare too deep into new land.”
Source: Works
“I was born a Scotsman and a bare one. Therefore I was born to fight my way in the world.”
“He that climbs a ladder must begin at the first round.”
Source: The Waverley Novels: In Twelve Volumes, Printed from the Latest English Editions, Embracing the Author's Last Corrections, Prefaces, and Notes
“A Finnan haddock has a relish of a peculiar and delicate flavour, inimitable on any other coast than that of Aberdeenshire. Some of our Edinburgh philosophers tried to produce their equal in vain. I was one of a party at dinner where the philosophical haddocks were placed in competition with the genuine Finnan fish. These were served round without distinguishing whence they came; but only one gentleman out of twelve present espoused the cause of philosophy.”
“The schoolmaster is termed, classically, Ludi Magister, because he deprives boys of their play.”
Source: Kenilworth
“You will, I trust, resemble a forest plant, which has indeed, by some accident, been brought up in the greenhouse, and thus rendered delicate and effeminate, but which regains its native firmness and tenacity, when exposed for a season to the winter air.”
Source: Waverley Novels
“Honour is a homicide and a bloodspiller, that gangs about making frays in the street; but Credit is a decent honest man, that sits at hame and makes the pat play.”
Source: Delphi Complete Works of Sir Walter Scott (Illustrated)
“Wounds sustained for the sake of conscience carry their own balsam with the blow.”
Source: Rob Roy
“I did not myself set a high estimation on wealth, and had the affectation of most young men of lively imagination, who suppose that they can better dispense with the possession of money, than resign their time and faculties to the labour necessary to acquire it.”
Source: The Complete Novels of Sir Walter Scott: Waverly, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, The Pirate, Old Mortality, The Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, The Heart of Midlothian and many more (Illustrated): The Betrothed, The Talisman, Black Dwarf, The Monastery, The Abbot, Kenilworth, Peveril of the Peak, A Legend of Montrose, The Fortunes of Nigel, Tales from Benedictine Sources…
“Now, it is well known, that a man may with more impunity be guilty of an actual breach either of real good breeding or of good morals, than appear ignorant of the most minute point of fashionable etiquette.”
Source: The waverly novels
“In prosperous times I have sometimes felt my fancy and powers of language flag, but adversity is to me at least a tonic and bracer.”
Source: Sir Walter Scott: Collected Letters, Memoirs and Articles: Complete Autobiographical Writings, Journal & Notes, Accompanied with Extended Biographies and Reminiscences of the Author of Waverly, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, The Pirate, Old Mortality, The Guy Mannering
“Look at a gown of gold, and you will at least get a sleeve of it.”
Source: Waverley Novels ...: Red-gauntlet
“...crystal and hearts would lose all their merit in the world if it were not for their fragility.”
Source: The Complete Novels of Sir Walter Scott: Waverly, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, The Pirate, Old Mortality, The Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, The Heart of Midlothian and many more (Illustrated): The Betrothed, The Talisman, Black Dwarf, The Monastery, The Abbot, Kenilworth, Peveril of the Peak, A Legend of Montrose, The Fortunes of Nigel, Tales from Benedictine Sources…
“Literature is a great staff, but a very sorry crutch.”
“Fortune may raise up or abuse the ordinary mortal, but the sage and the soldier should have minds beyond her control.”
Source: Talisman
“The paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly greatness, are always those of pleasantness and peace.”
Source: Waverley Novels: The heart of Mid-Lothian
“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.”
Source: Sir Walter Scott: Collected Letters, Memoirs and Articles: Complete Autobiographical Writings, Journal & Notes, Accompanied with Extended Biographies and Reminiscences of the Author of Waverly, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, The Pirate, Old Mortality, The Guy Mannering
“The chain of friendship, however bright, does not stand the attrition of constant close contact.”
Source: Sir Walter Scott: Collected Letters, Memoirs and Articles: Complete Autobiographical Writings, Journal & Notes, Accompanied with Extended Biographies and Reminiscences of the Author of Waverly, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, The Pirate, Old Mortality, The Guy Mannering
“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.”
Source: The Letters of Sir Walter Scott ...: 1821-1823
“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.”
Source: The Complete Works of Sir Walter Scott: With a Biography, and His Last Additions and Illustrations
“Come forth, old man,--thy daughter's side
Is now the fitting place for thee:
When time has quell'd the oak's bold pride,
The youthful tendril yet may hide,
The ruins of the parent tree.”
Source: Woodstock, Complete: Scott's Works Vol.24
“Here is neither want of appetite nor mouths,
Pray heaven we be not scant of meat or mirth.”
Source: Peveril of the Peak
“The most learned, acute, and diligent student cannot, in the longest life, obtain an entire knowledge of this one volume.”
“As hope and fear alternate chase
Our course through life's uncertain race.”
Source: Poetical works
“I'll dream no more--by mainly mind
Not even in sleep is well resigned.
My midnight orisons said o'er,
I'll turn to rest and dream no more.”
“He who indulges his sense in any excesses renders himself obnoxious to his own reason; and, to gratify the brute in him, displeases the man, and sets his two natures at variance.”
“Mellow nuts have the hardest rind.”
“Whose lenient sorrows find relief, whose joys are chastened by their grief.”
Source: The Complete Poetry of Sir Walter Scott: The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, The Lady of the Lake, Translations and Imitations from German Ballads, Marmion, Rokeby, The Field of Waterloo, Harold the Dauntless, The Wild Huntsman…
“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.”
“For deadly fear can time outgo, and blanch at once the hair.”
Source: The poetical works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart: complete in one volume : with all his introductions and notes, also various readings, and the editor's notes
“What an ornament and safeguard is humor! Far better than wit for a poet and writer. It is a genius itself, and so defends from the insanities.”
“All live by seeming.
The beggar begs with it, and the gay courtier
Gains land and title, rank and rule, by seeming;
The clergy scorn it not, and the bold soldier
Will eke with it his service.--All admit it,
All practise it; and he who is content
With showing what he is, shall have small credit
In church, or camp, or state.--So wags the world.”
Source: The Waverley novels. 25 vols.
“Greatness of any kind has no greater foe than a habit of drinking.”
“Well, then--our course is chosen--spread the sail--
Heave oft the lead, and mark the soundings well--
Look to the helm, good master--many a shoal
Marks this stern coast, and rocks, where sits the Siren
Who, like ambition, lures men to their ruin.”
Source: The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart
“Oh, on that day, that wrathful day,
When man to judgment wakes front clay,
Be Thou, O Christ, the sinner's stay,
Though heaven and earth shall pass away.”
