Walter Scott Quotes

A mother's pride, a father's joy.

My foot is on my native heath, and my name is MacGregor.

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.

come he slow or come he fast it is but death that comes at last

But in this life we are still too weak to see that sight; we have not strength to open our mental eyes, and to behold the beauty of the Good, that incorruptible beauty which no tongue can tell. Then only will you see it, when you cannot speak of it; for the knowledge of it is deep silence, and supression of all the senses. He who has apprehended beauty of the Good can apprehend nothing else; he who has seen it can see nothing else; he cannot hear speech about aught else; he cannot move his body at all; he forgets bodily sensations and all bodily movements, and is still. But the beauty of the Good bathes his mind in light, and takes all his soul up to itself, and draws it forth from the body, and changes the whole man into eternal substance. For it cannot be, my son, that a soul should become a god while it abides in a human body; it must be changed, and then behold the beauty of the Good, and therewith become a god.

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

Family tradition and genealogical history, upon which much of Sir Everard's discourse turned, is the very reverse of amber, which, itself a valuable substance, usually includes flies, straws, and other trifles; whereas these studies, being themselves very insignificant and trifling, do nevertheless serve to perpetuate a great deal of what is rare and valuable in ancient manners, and to record many curious and minute facts which could have been preserved and conveyed through no other medium.

But with the morning cool reflection came.

...[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.

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.

Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit.

The evil consequences of our crimes long survive their commission, and, like the ghosts of the murdered, for ever haunt the steps of the malefactor.

Chivalry! — -why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection — -the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant — -Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword.

I should be rather like the wild hawk, who, barred the free exercise of his soar through heaven, will dash himself to pieces against the bars of his cage.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!