O Woman! In our hours of ease Uncertain coy and hard to please And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made When pain and anguish wring the brow A ministering angel thou!

— Walter Scott

Patriotism Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, 'This is my own, my native land!' Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd As home his footsteps he hath turn'from wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentrated all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, honor'd, and unsung.

— Walter Scott

Perhaps the perusal of such works may, without injustice, be compared with the use of opiates, baneful, when habitually and constantly resorted to, but of most blessed power in those moments of pain and of languor, when the whole head is sore, and the whole heart sick. If those who rail indiscriminately at this species of composition, were to consider the quantity of actual pleasure it produces, and the much greater proportion of real sorrow and distress which it alleviates, their philanthropy ought to moderate their critical pride, or religious intolerance.

— Walter Scott

Revenge is a feast for the gods!

— Walter Scott

Revenge, the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell.

— Walter Scott

So wondrous wild, the whole might seethe scenery of a fairy dream

— Walter Scott

Success - keeping your mind awake and your desire asleep.

— Walter Scott

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

— Walter Scott

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

— Walter Scott

The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.

— Walter Scott