Quotes by "Walter Scott"

Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last final awakening.

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

The sickening pang of hope deferr'd.

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.

And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.

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

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!

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

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.

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

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!

It is ill arguing against anything from its misuse.

Perhaps the perusal of such works may, without injustice, be compared with the use of opiates, baneful, when habitually and constantly resorted to, but of most blessed power in those moments of pain and of langour, when the whole head is sore, and the whole heart sick. If those who rail indiscriminately at this species of composition, were to consider the quantity of actual pleasure it produces, and the much greater proportion of real sorrow and distress which it alleviates, their philanthropy ought to moderate their critical pride, or religious intolerance.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Success - keeping your mind awake and your desire asleep.

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