Walter Scott Quotes

Scottish novelist, poet and playwright (1771–1832)

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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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Female forms of exquisite grace and beauty began to mingle in his mental adventures; nor was he long without looking abroad to compare the creatures of his own imagination with the females of actual life.

The gaudy colouring with which she veiled her unhappiness afforded as little real comfort as the gay uniform of the soldier when it is drawn over his mortal wound.

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

Look back, and smile on perils past!

those who have experienced your hospitality at night, have little occasion for breakfast in the morning. —

Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
As in that well-remember'd night
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whisper'd love.

You remind me at this moment,” said the young lady, resuming her lively and indifferent manner, “of the fairy tale, where the man finds all the money which he had carried to market suddenly changed into pieces of slate. I have cried down and ruined your whole stock of complimentary discourse by one unlucky observation.

The pith of conversation does not consist in exhibiting your own superior knowledge on matters of small consequence, but in enlarging, improving, and correcting the information you possess, by the authority of others.

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

Craigengelt, you are either an honest fellow in right good earnest, and I scarce know how to believe that; or you are cleverer than I took you for, and I scarce know how to believe that either.

Hospitality to the exile, and broken bones to the tyrant.

I’m sprighted with a fool — Sprighted and anger’d worse.

Such an institution could only prevail at a time when ordinary means of justice were excluded by the hand of power, and when, in order to bring the guilty to punishment, it required all the influence and authority of such a confederacy. In no other country than one exposed to every species of feudal tyranny, and deprived of every ordinary mode of obtaining justice or redress, could such a system have taken root and flourished.

A moment of peril is often also a moment of open-hearted kindness and affection. We are thrown off our guard by the general agitation of our feelings, and betray the intensity of those which, at more tranquil periods, our prudence at least conceals, if it cannot altogether suppress them.