Walter Scott
93 quotes
Biography
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature.
"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."
"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."
"All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education."
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave...when first we practice to deceive."
"For success, attitude is equally as important as ability."
"Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening."
"We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing as moonshine, compared with the education of the heart."
"I pretend not to be a champion of that same naked virtue called truth, to the very outrance. I can consent that her charms be hidden with a veil, were it but for decency's sake."
"But mankind—the race would perish did they cease to aid each other.—From the time that the mother binds the child's head, till the moment that some kind assistant wipes the death-damp from the brow of the dying, we cannot exist without mutual help. All, therefore, that need aid, have the right to ask it of their fellow-mortals; no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt."
"War's a fearsome thing. They'll be cunning that catches me at this wark again."
"The Sun never sets on the immense empire of Charles V."
"Although too much of a soldier among sovereigns, no one could claim with better right to be a sovereign among soldiers."
"There is a southern proverb—fine words butter no parsnips."
"Oh, poverty parts good company."
"Fat, fair, and forty."
"Too much rest is rust."
"Widowed wife and wedded maid."
"A miss is as good as a mile."
"The eye of the yeoman and peasant sought in vain the tall form of old Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley, as, wrapped in his laced cloak, and with beard and whiskers duly composed, he moved slowly through the aisles, followed be the faithful mastiff, or bloodhound, which in old time had saved his master by his fidelity, and which regularly followed him to church. Bevis indeed, fell under the proverb which avers, ‘He is a good dog, which goes to church’; for, bating an occasional temptation to warble along with the accord, he behaved himself as decorously as any of the congregation, and returned much edified, perhaps, as most of them."
"Ride on prosperously — do not stop — do not call a halt — do not quit the saddle — pursue the scattered fliers — sound the trumpet — not a levant or a flourish, but a point of war — sound, boot and saddle — to horse and away — a charge!"
"If you keep a thing seven years, you are sure to find a use for it."
"What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier?"
"There is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine."
"Heaven knows its time; the bullet has its billet."