Quotes By Walter Scott

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Success - keeping your mind awake and your desire asleep.

One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.

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

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

Look back, and smile on perils past.