Walter Scott Quotes

Scottish novelist, poet and playwright (1771–1832)

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (August 15, 1771 – September 21, 1832) was a Scottish historical novelist, poet, playwright and historian popular throughout Europe during his time. He had a major impact on European and American literature. As an advocate, judge and legal administrator by profession, he combined writing and editing with daily work as Clerk of Session and Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire. He was prominent in Edinburgh's Tory establishment, active in the Highland Society, long a president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1820–1832), and a vice president of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1827–1829). His knowledge of history and literary facility equipped him to establish the historical novel genre and as an exemplar of European Romanticism.

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Pen Names: Jedediah Cleishbotham • Laurence Templeton • Somnambulus • Malachi Malagrowther • Clutterbuck • Lawrence Templeton

Also Known As: Border Minstrel

Alternative Names: Walter Skott • Sir Walter Scott, Bart. • Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet • Great Magician • The Great Unknown • Walter Sir Scott • Wizard of the North

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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.

Bluid is thicker than water.

The Sun never sets on the immense empire of Charles V.

Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.

In the wide pile, by others heeded not,
Hers was one sacred solitary spot,
Whose gloomy aisles and bending shelves contain
For moral hunger food, and cures for moral pain.

there can, we think, be little doubt of the proposition, that the external organs may, from various causes, become so much deranged as to make false representations to the mind; and that, in such cases, men, in the literal sense, really see the empty and false forms and hear the ideal sounds which, in a more primitive state of society, are naturally enough referred to the action of demons or disembodied spirits.

Thy resolution may fluctuate on the wild and changeful billows of human opinion, but mine is anchored on the Rock of Ages.

And please return it. You may think this a strange request, but I find that although my friends are poor arithmeticians, they are nearly all of them good bookkeepers.

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

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.

Fat, fair, and forty.

For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears.

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.

In man's most dark extremity
Oft succour dawns from Heaven.

Woman's faith and woman's trust,
Write the characters in dust.