Top 1200 Quotes & Sayings by Scottish Authors - Page 14

Besides, I always thought that one of the great attractions of practising law was what I like to call the collegiality of the profession and I think that duty of collegiality applies even when we are retired.

Here is no choice but either do or die.

I'm a special drunkard... I drink too much.

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.

Kenny Dalglish was the greatest to play for Liverpool and Scotland, so for someone like that to sign me was an honour.

Painting becomes interesting when it becomes timeless.

I've been a jealous person myself. I've been distrustful, convinced that somebody's having an affair with somebody else. If you believe it in your head, everything looks like a lie. When you're looking for it, you always see it - even the change of expression in their face.

An experimental idea doesn't have to be separated from a mainstream context. The really exciting thing is where those two things are together. That's where you can get real change.

I sang in a rock band when I was training as a lawyer. You know, not professional, we just did it for fun. We just did gigs all over Edinburgh and some in Glasgow and some at festivals.

What was the reason for invading Iraq' Was it a humanitarian crusade or an economic one' I would be inclined to say the latter. It was the same with the Civil War, because the landed gentry's money was being stolen by the king.

There is no doubt that Formula 1 has the best risk management of any sport and any industry in the world.

I adored being at the RSC and working on the verse and getting the iambic pentameter right. You just skim across the surface, and the speech is over before you know it. You can just ride along on the music of it.

For a date, I'd like to do something different to drinks or dinner - like walking around Camden for a day in the sun, or something weird, like skydiving. Then at least if you don't get on you've had fun.

It became clear I wanted to be a development economist. I mean, I said I wanted to work on the economics of poor countries. And I'd actually say that I don't think that was so much about narrowing the gap as about increasing their incomes, which means economic growth, which is really my prime interest.

My mother is not a Catholic, but she's always tried to drag my brother and my sister and I to church from a very young age, and we have always put up a little bit of a rebellion against it.

I remember going to the university film club to see 'The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp' one night and being bowled over. It was one of the most beautiful films I'd ever seen. And it felt so personal.

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

Method acting is a label I don't really understand, because there's a method to everybody's acting.

In so much of politics you're not allowed to disagree with what's been agreed.

I used to go to a Gaelic class on a Saturday morning, but I never felt myself that I could speak it properly.

My parents' concern has been one of my greatest assets - I needed something to kick against. If they'd supported me every step of the way I might not have had enough fire in my belly to get where I have. Then I think: was this whole thing reverse psychology, did you really go to those lengths?

I'm not sure about English football to be honest with you. There's a lot of politics down there and I'm not sure it's just about your attributes on the park. If it was I'd still be down there.

The longer mathematics lives the more abstract - and therefore, possibly also the more practical - it becomes.

I've always taken my love of children from my father. He was a children magnet. Suddenly, having my first child hit home what my dad went through.

Millions of hells of sinners cannot come near to exhaust infinite grace.

Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.

All the mathematical sciences are founded on relations between physical laws and laws of numbers, so that the aim of exact science is to reduce the problems of nature to the determination of quantities by operations with numbers.

You've got to be able to act when it's necessary to act. And you've got to be able to act where the threat is.

All that I say is, examine, inquire. Look into the nature of things. Search out the grounds of your opinions, the for and against. Know why you believe, understand what you believe, and possess a reason for the faith that is in you.

The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.

It means I wake up to sunshine every morning, and I can afford to drink better wine at night. But I haven't completely sold out to Hollywood.

From today I am no longer a racing driver. I'm retired and I am very happy.

With the situation now, people might be intrigued to see how a country coped with war all those years ago.

Fitness is a curve. You can be Lance Armstrong, or you can be really out of shape at the opposite end. People enter the curve wherever they are and then they can move up the curve, by better nutrition and better exercise.

In all the antique religions, mythology takes the place of dogma; that is, the sacred lore of priests and people... and these stories afford the only explanation that is offered of the precepts of religion and the prescribed rules of ritual.

It's always easier to dismiss other people than to go through the awkward and time consuming process of understanding them.

Religion fails if it cannot speak to men as they are.

I do believe in my national identity. I'm very proud, of what I come from and where I come from, and there are values up there that I like and that I hold on to: loyalty I suppose, and a sense of humour, and a lack of self pity.

My mother was always deeply attracted to anything medical, and I think she would have loved me to have been a doctor. My father was in the army for 21 years, came out just before I was born. There was no history of showbusiness on either side of the family, but they were completely supportive.

They were singing, Gillette, the best a man can get, with a lot of guys hugging their fathers and sailing and riding bikes. I suddenly felt a long way from the best a man could get and I thought it would be nice to get from there to the best.

I think $100 at the end of the year doesn't mean a lot to me, but $100 from everyone in the state at the end of the year could mean lots of programs that could be good for Hawaii.

Let's face it - the electric guitar is way sexier than the acoustic.

It's that TV thing. You can be in the biggest film of the year and it will still not have the kind of impact a TV series has. Once you're in people's living rooms, that's it. There's no hiding place.

I've never wanted to live in a ghetto or write in a ghetto. I want to write about a world that reflects the one most people live in. Gay people are just one aspect of that.

It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn.

I have different hats; I'm a mother, I'm a woman, I'm a human being, I'm an artist and hopefully I'm an advocate. All of those plates are things I spin all the time.

I'm not a saint. I'm not an angel. I'm a human being.

Giving kids whatever they ask for is disastrous parenting. There's no sense of something earned. I'm sorry, but when you're 12, you don't need a new cell phone every few months just because a new one comes out.

Some age, others mature.

But He Himself hath sealed your sufferings, and their thus saying condemns God, and His sealing condemns them.

I've two huge German shepherds who are my boys. They're called Biscuit and Buster, and I love them to bits.

'Tis easier for the generous to forgive, than for offence to ask it.

I would like to think I'm a good secret-keeper, when it comes to friends. I'm quite loyal like that.

But we acted pre-emptively in Kosovo in 1999 to stop Milosevic from doing what he was doing and increasingly doing the ethnic cleansing in a systematic way.

My first pet at home in Edinburgh was a dog my dad had called Glen. He was a small sheepdog and went with my dad every day to work as manager of a cooking centre, which made the children's lunches for schools.

Cinema is a great medium for creating a dream world and entering into it.

I will go anywhere, provided it is forward.

I think people feel starved of nice, glamorous entertainment. They want to see costumes and gaiety and a singer; old-fashioned entertainment - it won't die easily.

It's a roll of the dice in the movie business. I mean, every single movie is a roll of the dice. Any movie on paper could look like it's going to be fantastic. You know what I mean?

The only society I like is rough and tough, and the tougher the better. There's where you get down to bedrock and meet human people.