Top 1200 Quotes & Sayings by Scottish Authors - Page 16

I go to Canada at least every two years.

'Obvious' is the most dangerous word in mathematics.

The same sort of thing happened in my dispute with the National Trust book: Follies: A National Trust Guide, which implied that the only pleasure you can get from Folly architecture is by calling the architect mad, and by laughing at the architecture.

I maintain that the existing corn laws are bad, because they have given a monopoly of food to the landed interest over every other class and over every other interest in the kingdom.

It's easier for me to get three times the amount of money I really want.

And muse on Nature with a poet's eye.

I'm not the type of person who enjoys the limelight.

Farewell, dearest friend, never to see one another any more till at the right hand of Christ.

We have seen that no religion stands on the basis of things known; none bounds its horizon within the field of human observation; and, therefore, as it can never present us with indisputable facts, so must it ever be at once a source of error and contention.

Meditation is certainly not a religion, cult, or spiritual path: it's actually a very basic practice to reduce stress.

We need to find a way of having a conversation across the parties on how you fund local government.

Have you ever noticed? Anybody going slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac.

You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.

The biggest problem I have doing my acting is having to interact with other people. I think if it wasn't for my wife and my kids, I'd probably be a hermit.

I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, and robes the mountain in its azure hue.

With 'Black Sea,' I long had an idea that I wanted to do a film about people stuck on the bottom of the ocean. I thought that was a terrifying scenario.

I'm not a Method person, so I'm not like in character all the time.

Nine out of ten Americans believe that out of ten people, one person will always disagree with the other nine!

The studio system reminds me of the stock market.

I like the spontaneity; I like to just get people together and hit 'record' so hopefully it has got a liveliness about it.

The advent of a new religion, making serious and impressive claims to embody a new revelation from on high, is not a frequent occurrence.

I'll always remember listening to Mark Radcliffe playing Sonic Youth. I felt this instant connection, it offered me a peak behind a curtain into this world that I'd never experienced. I wanted to be part of it.

When the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century brought a rapid increase in wealth, the demand of workers for a fair share of the wealth they were creating was conceded only after riots and strikes.

To sit for one's portrait is like being present at one's own creation.

There may be Peace without Joy, and Joy without Peace, but the two combined make Happiness.

But you cannot expect every writer to dwell on human suffering. I think my books do deal with grave issues. People who say they are too positive probably haven't read them.

I played as a 17-year-old with Walter Smith, who must have been about 32. So I've known Walter for 21 years.

Parents learn a lot from their children about coping with life.

I've been on the road for fifteen years and I had no intent to stop.

I dared to be different, I want to inspire others to do the same.

Peace is the happy natural state of man; war is corruption and disgrace.

It's really rare for film directors to be that interested in things other than themselves.

If I had been trying to take the job away from him in a sneaky, underhand manner, then I deserved all I got. But it was the other way around. I was trying to get him the job.

There are so many avenues to explore and stories to tell. It's just about finding new ways of telling them.

If I can be somewhere with sunshine and have bare feet and a book, I'm happy.

Let it them be put into any clean oven vessel of china or stoneware which should be wider at the top than at the bottom. so that there may be the largest surface above to favor the evaporation.

One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.

I spend plenty of time in London and it doesn't scare me, but it's a lonely place, even if you've got friends there. My job takes me all around the world, meeting lots of interesting people. But I think if I couldn't get home, if I couldn't get back to what I consider my real life I'd be frightened.

Aim for the sky and you'll reach the ceiling. Aim for the ceiling and you'll stay on the floor.

I'm not terribly well read. My wife forces books into my hands and insists I read them, which I'm grateful to her for. She made me read 'War and Peace.' The whole thing. It was amazing, but I had to hide it. You can't walk round reading 'War and Peace' - it's like you're in a comedy sketch and you think you're smart.

I am the Rangers manager who ended up in a witness stand in the high court, thinking: 'Is this what it's come to?' There were people involved at our football club who had no right to be there and should never have been near the place.

I've played the violin since I was seven but stopped because there was a stage when it became 'uncool'. I was listening to Nirvana and wanted to play the guitar, so I ditched the violin.

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.

When I was working with David Cassidy at the Rio, I made an album of updated versions of some 1970s disco tunes. I had a blast.

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

All those authors there, most of whom of course I've never met. That's the poetry side, that's the prose side, that's the fishing and miscellaneous behind me. You get an affection for books that you've enjoyed.

I try not to think about writers who came before me when I'm writing myself. If I did, given the abundance of literary talent Scotland - and Edinburgh in particular - has bestowed upon the world, I wouldn't be able to get as much as a sentence written.

That's a really strange, unique position to be in - royalty is where you have no choice over what your duties are.

I still have a fear of theater. I don't know if I will manage that. I used to do it. I developed a bit of a phobia. It's not a real phobia. I can go in and watch.

Growing up a lonely only child prepared me for the years of solitude spent as a writer; years spent in the company of people who don't exist, imaginary people you have conversations with. It's a paid form of madness, this writing stuff.

Love may not make the world go round, but I must admit that it makes the ride worthwhile.

I'm single and looking and failing miserably. I'm keeping my options open.

Never trust a man, who when left alone with a tea cosey... Doesn't try it on.

The simplest principles become difficult of practice, when habits, formed in error, have been fixed by time, and the simplest truths hard to receive when prejudice has warped the mind.

Within NATO, our Defence Capabilities Initiative has identified the essential capabilities all Allies must have for modern operations, and Allies are working to meet those requirements.

I've been in football a long time and people have problems through debt, drugs, drink and family.

It was both comforting and terrifying to go in to audition for 'The Girl in the Cafe,' as I'd worked with everyone in the room on 'State Of Play.'

It has to start from the playground and parents teaching kids that diversity is what makes us so wonderful.

You know, in the 1970's, when I was in high school, I belonged to a band called the Happy Funk Band. Until an unfortunate typo caused us to be expelled from school.