Quotes by Walter Scott

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 thats broken!

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Look back, and smile on perils past.

Success - keeping your mind awake and your desire asleep.

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

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

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

“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!”