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Sordid selfishness doth contract and narrow our benevolence, and cause us, like serpents, to infold ourselves within ourselves, and to turn out our stings to the entire world besides.

Walter Scott

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Walter Scott
Age: 61 †
Born: 1771
Born: August 15
Died: 1832
Died: September 21
Baronet Scott
Biographer
Historian
Judge
Lawyer
Linguist
Literary Critic
Musicologist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Poet Lawyer
Translator
Edinburgh
Scotland
Walter Skott
Jedediah Cleishbotham
Laurence Templeton
Somnambulus
Malachi Malagrowther
Sir Walter Scott
Bart.
Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott
1st Baronet
Great Magician
The Great Unknown
Turns
Besides
Serpents
Like
Narrow
Stings
World
Selfishness
Sordid
Entire
Serpent
Cause
Benevolence
Turn
Doth
Causes
Contract
Within
Contracts

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Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung.
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In the lost battle, Borne down by the flying, Where mingles war's rattle With groans of the dying.
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Teach you children poetry it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.
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There is a southern proverb - fine words butter no parsnips.
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It is wonderful what strength of purpose and boldness and energy of will are roused by the assurance that we are doing our duty.
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Certainly, quoth Athelstane, women are the least to be trusted of all animals, monks and abbots excepted.
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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.
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Where is the coward that would not dare to fight for such a land as Scotland?
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Saint George and the Dragon!-Bonny Saint George for Merry England!-The castle is won!
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The lover's pleasure, like that of the hunter, is in the chase, and the brightest beauty loses half its merit, as the flower its perfume, when the willing hand can reach it too easily. There must be doubt there must be difficulty and danger.
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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.
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A few drops sprinkled on the torch of love make the flame blaze the brighter.
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No scene of mortal life but teems with mortal woe.
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England was merry England, when Old Christmas brought his sports again. 'Twas Christmas broach'd the mightiest ale 'Twas Christmas told the merriest tale A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man's heart through half the year.
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For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war, Was to wed the fair Ellen of Lochinvar.
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From my experience, not one in twenty marries the first love we build statues of snow and weep to see them melt.
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And better had they ne'er been born, Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
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Teach self-denial and make its practice pleasure, and you can create for the world a destiny more sublime that ever issued from the brain of the wildest dreamer.
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