Walter Scott quotes:

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

When true friends meet in adverse hour; 'Tis like a sunbeam through a shower. A watery way an instant seen, The darkly closing clouds between.

Success - keeping your mind awake and your desire asleep.

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.

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!

England was merry England, when Old Christmas brought his sports again. '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.

Look back, and smile on perils past.

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

I will tear this folly from my heart, though every fibre bleed as I rend it away!

See yonder rock from which the fountain gushes; is it less compact of adamant, though waters flow from it? Firm hearts have moister eyes.

Her blue eyes sought the west afar, For lovers love the western star.

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

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?

He turn'd his charger as he spake, Upon the river shore, He gave his bridle reins a shake, Said, "Adieu for evermore, my love, And adieu for evermore."

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.

There is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine.

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

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

He that follows the advice of reason has a mind that is elevated above the reach of injury; that sits above the clouds, in a calm and quiet ether, and with a brave indifferency hears the rolling thunders grumble and burst under his feet.

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

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

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."

And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.

O woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!

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

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

The chain of friendship, however bright, does not stand the attrition of constant close contact.

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

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, Come saddle your horses, and call up your men; Come open the West Port, and let me gang free, And it's room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee!

O come ye in peace here, or come ye in war, Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?

Fight on, brave knights! Man dies, but glory lives! Fight on; death is better than defeat! Fight on brave knights! for bright eyes behold your deeds!

Blessed be his name, who hath appointed the quiet night to follow the busy day, and the calm sleep to refresh the wearied limbs and to compose the troubled spirit.

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

Chivalry!---why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection---the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant ---Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword.

The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.

Besides, Rose Bradwardine, beautiful and amiable as we have described her, had not precisely the sort of beauty or merit which captivates a romantic imagination in early youth. She was too frank, too confiding, too kind; amiable qualities, undoubtedly, but destructive of the marvellous, with which a youth of imagination delights to dress the empress of his affections.

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.

Contentions fierce, Ardent, and dire, spring from no petty cause.

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

So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war, There never was knight like young Lochinvar.

Spangling the wave with lights as vain As pleasures in the vale of pain, That dazzle as they fade.

Still are the thoughts to memory dear.

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

Like the dew on the mountain, like the foam on the river, like the bubble on the fountain, thou art gone, and for ever!

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

Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit.

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.

Now, it is well known, that a man may with more impunity be guilty of an actual breach either of real good breeding or of good morals, than appear ignorant of the most minute point of fashionable etiquette.

Who o'er the herd would wish to reign, Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain! Vain as the leaf upon the stream, And fickle as a changeful dream; Fantastic as a woman's mood, And fierce as Frenzy's fever'd blood. Thou many-headed monster thing, Oh who would wish to be thy king!

Land of my sires! what mortal hand Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand!

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.

I will but confess the sins of my green cloak to my grey friar's frock, and all shall be well again.

Oh, Brignall banks are wild and fair, And Greta woods are green, And you may gather garlands there Would grace a summer's queen.

Look not thou on beauty's charming; Sit thou still when kings are arming; Taste not when the wine-cup glistens; Speak not when the people listens

God forgive me for having thought it possible that a schoolmaster could be out and out a rational being.

A glass of good wine is a gracious creature, and reconciles poor mortality to itself and that is what few things can do.

Good wine needs neither bush nor preface to make it welcome. And they drank the red wine through the helmet barr'd.

Here eglantine embalm'd the air, Hawthorne and hazel mingled there; The primrose pale, and violet flower, Found in each cliff a narrow bower; Fox-glove and nightshade, side by side, Emblems of punishment and pride, Group'd their dark hues with every stain The weather-beaten crags retain.

Vacant heart, and hand, and eye, Easy live and quiet die.

In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster.

Then hush thee, my darling, take rest while you may, For strife comes with manhood, and waking with day.

As system virtualization becomes mainstream, IT managers will find a greater need for disk imaging for disaster recovery and systems deployment,.

For love is heaven and heaven is love.

Oh, on that day, that wrathful day, When man to judgment wakes front clay, Be Thou, O Christ, the sinner's stay, Though heaven and earth shall pass away.

Whose lenient sorrows find relief, whose joys are chastened by their grief.

From my experience, not one in twenty marries the first love; we build statues of snow and weep to see them melt.

Soldier, rest! Thy warfare o'er, Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking, Dream of battled fields no more. Days of danger, nights of waking.

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

The way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses gray, Seemed to have know a better day.

A thousand fearful images and dire suggestions glance along the mind when it is moody and discontented with itself. Command them to stand and show themselves, and you presently assert the power of reason over imagination.

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.

Many of our cares are but a morbid way of looking at our privileges

The rose is fairest when 't is budding new, And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears. The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew, And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.

November's sky is chill and drear, November's leaf is red and sear.

There is a southern proverb - fine words butter no parsnips.

It is a great disgrace to religion, to imagine that it is an enemy to mirth and cheerfulness, and a severe exacter of pensive looks and solemn faces.

Adversity is like the period of the rain. . . cold, comfortless, unfriendly to people and to animals; yet from that season have their birth the flower, the fruit, the date, the rose and the pomegranate.

In prosperous times I have sometimes felt my fancy and powers of language flag, but adversity is to me at least a tonic and bracer.

High minds, of native pride and force, Most deeply feel thy pangs, Remorse; Fear, for their scourge, means villains have, Thou art the torturer of the brave!

It is the privilege of tale-tellers to open their story in an inn, the free rendezvous of all travellers, and where the humour of each displays itself, without ceremony or restraint.

There are those to whom a sense of religion has come in storm and tempest; there are those whom it has summoned amid scenes of revelry and idle vanity; there are those, too, who have heard its "still small voice" amid rural leisure and placid retirement. But perhaps the knowledge which causeth not to err is most frequently impressed upon the mind during the season of affliction.

Ridicule often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble.

For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.

Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!

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

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.

Thou hast had thty day, old dame, but thy sun has long been set. Thou art now the very emblem of an old warhorse turned out on the barren heath; thou hast had thy paces in thy time, but now a broken amble is the best of them.

It was woman that taught me cruelty, and on woman therefore I have exercised it.

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.

Wounds sustained for the sake of conscience carry their own balsam with the blow.

Look back, and smile on perils past!

I did not myself set a high estimation on wealth, and had the affectation of most young men of lively imagination, who suppose that they can better dispense with the possession of money, than resign their time and faculties to the labour necessary to acquire it.

Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below, and the saints above, for love is heaven, and heaven is love.

Where is the coward that would not dare to fight for such a land as Scotland?

I was born a Scotsman and a bare one. Therefore I was born to fight my way in the world.

There never will exist anything permanently noble and excellent in the character which is a stranger to resolute self-denial.

If a faultless poem could be produced, I am satisfied it would tire the critics themselves; and annoy the whole reading world with the spleen.

I like a highland friend who will stand by me not only when I am in the right, but when I am a little in the wrong.

The tear, down childhood's cheek that flows, Is like the dewdrop on the rose; When next the summer breeze comes by And waves the bush, the flower is dry.

Revenge, the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell.

Never was flattery lost on a poet's ear; a simple race, they waste their toil for the vain tribute of a smile.

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

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

All live by seeming. The beggar begs with it, and the gay courtier Gains land and title, rank and rule, by seeming; The clergy scorn it not, and the bold soldier Will eke with it his service.--All admit it, All practise it; and he who is content With showing what he is, shall have small credit In church, or camp, or state.--So wags the world.

We do that in our zeal our calmer moment would be afraid to answer.

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

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

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

"Charge, Chester, charge! on, Stanley, on!" Were the last words of Marmion.

"Lambe them, lads! lambe them!" a cant phrase of the time derived from the fate of Dr. Lambe, an astrologer and quack, who was knocked on the head by the rabble in Charles the First's time.

...crystal and hearts would lose all their merit in the world if it were not for their fragility.

A few drops sprinkled on the torch of love make the flame blaze the brighter.