Sir Walter Scott Quotes

"A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect."

"A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass, will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy."

"Adversity is, to me at least, a tonic and a bracer."

"All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education."

"But with morning cool repentance came."

"Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life."

"Each age has deemed the new-born year the fittest time for festal cheer."

"Faces that have charmed us the most escape us the soonest."

"For success, attitude is equally as important as ability."

"He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles."

"He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit, He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in his suit."

"I can give you a six-word formula for success: "Think things through - then follow through.""

"If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors."

"If you once turn on your side after the hour at which you ought to rise, it is all over. Bolt up at once."

"It is wonderful what strength of purpose and boldness and energy of will are roused by the assurance that we are doing our duty."

"Look back, and smile on perils past."

"Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above: For love is heaven, and heaven is love."

"Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the Shore of a dark Scottish lake."

"Mary, I believed thee true, And I was blest in thus believing; But now I mourn that ever I knew A girl so fair and so deceiving."

"O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!"

"O! many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant! And many a word, at random spoken, May soothe or wound a heart that's broken!"

"Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness."

"One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name."

"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 honor or observation."

"One of the most important phases of maturing is that of growth from self-centering to an understanding relationship to others. A person is not mature until he has both an ability and a willingness to see himself as one among others and to do unto those others as he would have them do to him."

"Scorn also to depress thy competitor by any dishonest or unworthy method; strive to raise thyself above him only by excelling him; so shall thy contest for superiority be crowned with honour, if not with success."

"Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim. One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name."

"Success - keeping your mind awake and your desire asleep."

"Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities."

"Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary."

"The half hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention... It was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me."

"The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-men; and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt."

"'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come."

"To all, to each, a fair good-night, And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light."

"To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue."

"To the timid and hesitating everything is impossible because it seems so."

"'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale; 'twas Christmas told the merriest tale; a Christmas gambol oft could cheer the poor man's heart through half the year."

"Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn."

"We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt."

"What I have to say is far more important than how long my eyelashes are."

"What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it."

"When thinking about companions gone, we feel ourselves doubly alone."