Walter Scott

O fading honours of the dead! O high ambition, lowly laid!

If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright, Go visit it by the pale moonlight.

Steady of heart, and stout of hand.

Such is the custom of Branksome Hall.

The way was long, the wind was cold, The Minstrel was infirm and old; His withered cheek, and tresses gray, Seemed to have known a better day.

My dear, be a good man—be virtuous—be religious—be a good man. Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here. ...God bless you all.

Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright As in that well-remember'd night When first thy mystic braid was wove, And first my Agnes whisper'd love.

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 …

Heaven knows its time; the bullet has its billet.

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

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, Come saddle your horses, and call up your men; Come open the West Port, and let me gang free, And it's room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee!

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

What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, save that it runs back to a successful soldier?

If you keep a thing seven years, you are sure to find a use for it.

Ride on prosperously — do not stop — do not call a halt — do not quit the saddle — pursue the scattered fliers — sound the trumpet — not a levant or a flourish, but a point of war — sound, boot and saddle — to horse and away — a charge!

A miss is as good as a mile.

Woman's faith and woman's trust, Write the characters in dust.

Widowed wife and wedded maid.

Too much rest is rust.

Fat, fair, and forty.

Oh, poverty parts good company.

There is a southern proverb—fine words butter no parsnips.

Although too much of a soldier among sovereigns, no one could claim with better right to be a sovereign among soldiers.

The Sun never sets on the immense empire of Charles V.