Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) was a Scottish poet and novelist. He is an acknowledged master of the historical novel and was influential in his treatment of rural themes and the use of regional speech.
Born in Edinburgh into an affluent middle-class family, Scott experienced an attack of infantile paralysis that left him permanently lame from the age of two. He was sent to his grandfather’s farm to restore his health; there, he was exposed to Scottish history through ballads and stories—these shaped his storytelling talent. Scott trained in law at the University of Edinburgh, but his main interest lay in literature, which he pursued first as an editor and a translator.
Scott established himself as a major poet and a scholarly editor. Scott first made his mark as a poet—he collected, edited, and adapted ballads. He wrote the popular such famous narrative poems as The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805) and Marmion (1808.)
Scott is best known as the author of the Waverley novels (named after the first of the series, Waverley, 1814.) His novels, which usually feature accounts of chivalry and romance, changed the landscape of the novel, making the historical novel not just a national but also a planetary form. Waverley was an immediate success, and it was followed by a series of Scottish novels, including Rob Roy (1818) and The Heart of Midlothian (1818.) Among his later novels are Ivanhoe (1819,) Kenilworth (1821,) and Quentin Durward (1823.)
During his lifetime and for almost a century after his death, Scott was a massively popular writer. Scott’s influence influenced not only English but also world literature in the 19th century: he left his mark on writers as varied as Mark Twain, Alexander Pushkin, Stendhal, James Fenimore Cooper, Leo Tolstoy, and Charles Dickens.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Walter Scott
The race of mankind would perish, did they cease to aid each other. From the time that the mother binds the child’s head till the moment that some kind assistant wipes the death-damp from the brow of the dying, we cannot exist without mutual help. All, therefore, that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-mortals; no one who holds the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Giving, Kindness, Humanity, Service
Adversity is, to me at least, a tonic and a bracer.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties
From my experience, not one in twenty marries the first love; we build statues of snow, and weep to see them melt.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Responsibility, Snow, Marriage, Ideals
The will to do, the soul to dare.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Bravery, Courage
As good play for nothing, you know, as work for nothing.
—Walter Scott
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above:
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
—Walter Scott
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Honesty, Deceit
A thousand fearful images and dire suggestions glance along the mind when it is moody and discontented with itself. Command them to stand and show themselves, and you presently assert the power of reason over imagination.
—Walter Scott
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!
—Walter Scott
Topics: Mistakes, Discovery, Failure, Greatness
A sound head, an honest heart, and an humble spirit are the three best guides through time and to eternity.
—Walter Scott
Adversity is like the period of the former and of the latter rain, — cold, comfortless, unfriendly to man and to animal; yet from that season have their birth the flower and the fruit, the date, the rose, and the pomegranate.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties
In peace, love tunes the shepherd’s reed; in war, he mounts the warrior’s steed; in halls, in gay attire is seen; in hamlets, dances on the green. Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below, and saints above; for love is heaven, and heaven is love.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Love
Look back, and smile at perils past.
—Walter Scott
Topics: The Past, Past
This world is a dream within a dream; and as we grow older, each step is an awakening. The youth awakes, as he thinks, from childhood; the full-grown man despises the pursuits of youth as visionary; and the old man looks on manhood as a feverish dream. Death the last sleep? No! It is the last and final awakening!
—Walter Scott
Topics: Dying, World, Death
Is death the last step? No, it is the final awakening.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Dying, Death
Literature is a great staff, but a sorry crutch.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Literature
The pith of conversation does not consist in exhibiting your own superior knowledge on matters of small importance, but in enlarging, improving, and correcting the information you possess, by the authority of others.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Conversation
When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Goals, Indecision
Court not the critic’s smile nor dread his frown.
—Walter Scott
Topics: Criticism
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