Top 350 Walter Scott Quotes (2025 Update)
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251. “It was soon plain that what crumbs of reason the Bear had not devoured were to be picked up by the Hen; but the confusion which appeared to prevail favoured Edward’s resolution to evade the gaily circling glass. The others began to talk thick and at once, each performing his own part in the conversation without the least respect to his neighbour.”

— Walter Scott

252. “Age has no pleasures, wrinkles have no influence, revenge itself dies away in impotent curses. Then comes remorse, with all its vipers, mixed with vain regrets for the past, and despair for the future! – Then, when all other strong impulses have ceased, we become like the fiends in hell, who may feel remorse, but never repentance. – But thy.”

— Walter Scott

253. “It is more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle.”

— Walter Scott

254. “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

255. “He hath a share of man’s intelligence, but no share of man’s falsehood.”

— Walter Scott

256. “Ridicule, the weapon of all others most feared by enthusiasts of every description, and which from its predominance over such minds, often checks what is absurd, and fully as often smothers that which is noble.”

— Walter Scott

257. “Where lives the man that has not tried How mirth can into folly glide, And folly into sin!”

— Walter Scott

258. “As he offered to advance, she exclaimed, “Remain where thou art, proud Templar, or at thy choice advance! – one foot nearer, and I plunge myself from the precipice; my body shall be crushed out of the very form of humanity upon the stones of that courtyard ere it become the victim of thy brutality!”

— Walter Scott

259. “His suit of armour was formed of steel, richly inlaid with gold, and the device on his shield was a young oak-tree pulled up by the roots, with the Spanish word Desdichado, signifying Disinherited.”

— Walter Scott

260. “For deadly fear can time outgo, and blanch at once the hair.”

— Walter Scott

261. “There is more sense in your language, Bucklaw,” replied the Master, “than might have been expected from your conduct – it is too true, our vices steal upon us in forms outwardly fair as those of the demons whom the superstitious represent as intriguing with the human race, and are not discovered in their native hideousness until we have clasped them in our arms.”

— Walter Scott

262. “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

263. “Fools should not have chapping sticks’; that is, weapons of offence.”

— Walter Scott

264. “I want to speak with you,” she said, “and I have placed honest Thornie betwixt Rashleigh and you on purpose. He will be like – Feather-bed ’twixt castle wall And heavy brunt of cannon ball, while I, your earliest acquaintance in this intellectual family, ask of you how you like us all?”

— Walter Scott

265. “A good deal of philanthropy arises in general from mere vanity and love of distinction gilded over to others and to themselves with some show of benevolent sentiment.”

— Walter Scott

266. “I am about to recount occurred during the last years of the 14th century, when the Scottish sceptre was swayed by the gentle but feeble hand of John, who, on being called to the throne, assumed the title of Robert the Third.”

— Walter Scott

267. “Lightly from fair to fair he flew, And loved to plead, lament, and sue; Suit lightly won, and short-lived pain, For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.”

— Walter Scott

268. “Thus do men throw on fate the issue of their own wild passions.”

— Walter Scott

269. “Warriors! and where are warriors found, If not on martial Britain’s ground? And who, when waked with note of fire, Love more than they the British lyre?”

— Walter Scott

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

— Walter Scott

271. “Tell that to the marines – the sailors won’t believe it.”

— Walter Scott

272. “Let him who will not proffer’d peace receive, Be sated with the plagues which war can give: And well thy hatred of the peace is known, If now thy soul reject the friendship shown. Hoole’s Tasso.”

— Walter Scott

273. “There goes a true-bred Campbell,” said Montrose, as the envoy departed, “for they are ever fair and false.”

— Walter Scott

274. “The honest heart that’s free frae a’ Intended fraud or guile, However Fortune kick the ba’, Has aye some cause to smile. BURNS.”

— Walter Scott

275. “But there stands the sword of my ancestor Sir Richard Vernon, slain at Shrewsbury, and sorely slandered by a sad fellow called Will Shakspeare, whose Lancastrian partialities, and a certain knack at embodying them, has turned history upside down, or rather inside out.”

— Walter Scott

276. “Those who are too idle to read, save for the purpose of amusement, may in these works acquire some acquaintance with history, which, however inaccurate, is better than none.”

— Walter Scott

277. “I will but confess the sins of my green cloak to my grey friar’s frock, and all shall be well again.”

— Walter Scott

278. “You remind me at this moment,” said the young lady, resuming her lively and indifferent manner, “of the fairy tale, where the man finds all the money which he had carried to market suddenly changed into pieces of slate. I have cried down and ruined your whole stock of complimentary discourse by one unlucky observation.”

— Walter Scott

279. “Every hour has its end.”

— Walter Scott

280. “It is a great disgrace to religion, to imagine that it is an enemy to mirth and cheerfulness, and a severe exacter of pensive looks and solemn faces.”

— Walter Scott

281. “We do that in our zeal our calmer moment would be afraid to answer.”

— Walter Scott

282. “He that follows the advice of reason has a mind that is elevated above the reach of injury; that sits above the clouds, in a calm and quiet ether, and with a brave indifferency hears the rolling thunders grumble and burst under his feet.”

— Walter Scott

283. “Caution comes too late when we are in the midst of evils.”

— Walter Scott

284. “What!” said Bois-Guilbert, “so soon?” “Ay,” replied the preceptor, “trial moves rapidly on when the judge has determined the sentence beforehand.”

— Walter Scott

285. “It is only when I dally with what I am about, look back and aside, instead of keeping my eyes straight forward, that I feel these cold sinkings of the heart.”

— Walter Scott

286. “Yet, with a weakness of mind not uncommon to great criminals, he shrank from the thoughts of his own baseness and cruelty, and endeavored to banish the feeling of dishonor from his mind, by devolving the immediate execution of his villainy upon his subordinate agents.”

— Walter Scott

287. “As good play for nothing, you know, as work for nothing.”

— Walter Scott

288. “Upon subjects which interested him, and when quite at ease, he possessed that flow of natural, and somewhat florid eloquence, which has been supposed as powerful as figure, fashion, fame, or fortune, in winning the female heart. There.”

— Walter Scott

289. “Sibylla, daughter of Henry I of England, and consort of Alexander the First of Scotland. This.”

— Walter Scott

290. “I see a hand you cannot see, Which beckons me away; I hear a voice you cannot hear, Which says I must not stay. MALLET.”

— Walter Scott

291. “If a faultless poem could be produced, I am satisfied it would tire the critics themselves; and annoy the whole reading world with the spleen.”

— Walter Scott

292. “No scene of mortal life but teems with mortal woe.”

— Walter Scott

293. “A moment of peril is often also a moment of open-hearted kindness and affection. We are thrown off our guard by the general agitation of our feelings, and betray the intensity of those which, at more tranquil periods, our prudence at least conceals, if it cannot altogether suppress them.”

— Walter Scott

294. “I am the very child of caprice and folly.”

— Walter Scott

295. “Each must drain His share of pleasure, share of pain.”

— Walter Scott

296. “Profan’d the God-given strength, and marr’d the lofty line.”

— Walter Scott

297. “Scots wear short patience and long daggers.”

— Walter Scott

298. “Do not Christians and Heathens, Jews and Gentiles, poets and philosophers, unite in allowing the starry influences?”

— Walter Scott

299. “I should be rather like the wild hawk, who, barred the free exercise of his soar through heaven, will dash himself to pieces against the bars of his cage.”

— Walter Scott

300. “Blud’s thicker than water.”

— Walter Scott