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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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.

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

As old as the hills.

Yet, with a weakness of mind not uncommon to great criminals, he shrank from the thoughts of his own baseness and cruelty, and endeavored to banish the feeling of dishonor from his mind, by devolving the immediate execution of his villainy upon his subordinate agents.

I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?

Pride and jealousy there was in his eye, for his life had been spent in asserting rights which were constantly liable to invasion; and the prompt, fiery, and resolute disposition of the man, had been kept constantly upon the alert by the circumstances of his situation.

Those who follow the banners of Reason are like the well-disciplined battalion, which, wearing a more sober uniform, and making a less dazzling show, than the light troops commanded by Imagination, enjoy more safety, and even more honour, in the conflicts of human life.

I was not always a man of woe.

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung.

And my father!-oh, my father! evil is it with his daughter, when his grey hairs are not remembered because of the golden locks of youth!

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...when first we practice to deceive.

My hope, my heaven, my trust must be,
My gentle guide, in following thee.

Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendour, can never confer real happiness.

There is yet spirit in him, were it well directed- but, like the Greek fire, it burns whatever approaches it.

A Christmas gambol oft could cheer
The poor man's heart through half the year.