Words matter. These are the best Walter Scott Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Success – keeping your mind awake and your desire asleep.
O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!
To all, to each, a fair good-night, and pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.
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!
There is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine.
How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child’s board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.
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.
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.
Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn.
He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit, He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in his suit.
Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.
Each age has deemed the new-born year the fittest time for festal cheer.
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.
We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above: For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
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.
If you once turn on your side after the hour at which you ought to rise, it is all over. Bolt up at once.
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.
A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass, will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy.
Many miles away there’s a shadow on the door of a cottage on the Shore of a dark Scottish lake.
If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors.
Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life.
He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.
