Top 301 Quotes & Sayings by Walter Scott

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Scottish novelist Walter Scott.

Last updated on April 14, 2025.

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, was a Scottish historical novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Waverley, Old Mortality, The Heart of Mid-Lothian and The Bride of Lammermoor, and the narrative poems The Lady of the Lake and Marmion. He had a major impact on European and American literature.

Scottish - Novelist | August 15, 1771 - September 21, 1832

Source: Wikipedia

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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.

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

Success - keeping your mind awake and your desire asleep.

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

Look back, and smile on perils past.

Walter Scott

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

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 that's broken!

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

To the timid and hesitating everything is impossible because it seems so.

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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.

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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.

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.

Walter Scott

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.

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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.

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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.

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

What a strange scene if the surge of conversation could suddenly ebb like the tide, and show us the real state of people's minds.

Walter Scott

He that climbs a ladder must begin at the first round.

Walter Scott

God in his goodness sent the grapes To cheer both great and small; Little fools will drink too much And great fools none at all!

Walter Scott

Tears are the softening showers which cause the seed of heaven to spring up in the human heart.

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

come he slow or come he fast it is but death that comes at last

Walter Scott

Nothing is more completely the child of art than a garden.

Walter Scott

One or two of these scoundrel statesmen should be shot once a-year, just to keep the others on their good behavior.

Walter Scott

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.

Walter Scott

The will to do, the soul to dare..

Walter Scott

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.

Walter Scott

A sound head, an honest heart, and an humble spirit are the three best guides through time and to eternity.

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

The lover's pleasure, like that of the hunter, is in the chase, and the brightest beauty loses half its merit, as the flower its perfume, when the willing hand can reach it too easily. There must be doubt; there must be difficulty and danger.

Walter Scott

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.

Walter Scott

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

Walter Scott

War is the only game in which both sides lose.

Walter Scott

Sleep in peace, and wake in joy.

Walter Scott

The willow which bends to the tempest often escapes better than the oak which resists it.

Walter Scott

We are like the herb which flourisheth most when it is most trampled on.

Walter Scott

Marry in haste, repent at leisure.