Rob Roy Quotes

“Wounds sustained for the sake of conscience carry their own balsam with the blow.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“No word of commiseration can make a burden feel one feather's weight lighter to the slave who must carry it.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“In the wide pile, by others heeded not,
Hers was one sacred solitary spot,
Whose gloomy aisles and bending shelves contain
For moral hunger food, and cures for moral pain.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“Trade has all the fascination of gambling without its moral guilt.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“How nearly can what we most despise and hate, approach in outward manner to that which we most venerate!”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“Honour is a homicide and a bloodspiller, that gangs about making frays in the street; but Credit is a decent honest man, that sits at hame and makes the pat play.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“I should be rather like the wild hawk, who, barred the free exercise of his soar through heaven, will dash himself to pieces against the bars of his cage.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“I had just time to give a glance at these matters, when about twelve blue-coated servants burst into the hall with much tumult and talk, each rather employed in directing his comrades than in discharging his own duty. Some brought blocks and billets to the fire, which roared, blazed, and ascended, half in smoke, half in flame, up a huge tunnel, with an opening wide enough to accommodate a stone seat within its ample vault, and which was fronted, by way of chimney-piece, with a huge piece of heavy architecture, where the monsters of heraldry, embodied by the art of some Northumbrian chisel, grinned and ramped in red free-stone, now japanned by the smoke of centuries. Others of these old-fashioned serving-men bore huge smoking dishes, loaded with substantial fare; others brought in cups, flagons, bottles, yea barrels of liquor. All tramped, kicked, plunged, shouldered, and jostled, doing as little service with as much tumult as could well be imagined”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“unfortunate and ill-advised James II. But”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“But it is wonderful what mischief may be done by only two words”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“Everything is possible for him who possesses courage and activity….and to the timid and hesitating everything is impossible, because it seems so.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“Does the sense of being pleased and amused blunt our faculties of perception and discrimination of character, that I can only compare it to the taste of certain fruits, at once luscious and poignant, which renders our palate totally unfit for relishing or distinguishing the viands which are subsequently subjected to its criticism.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“I will never sell my liberty for gold.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“You remind me at this moment,” said the young lady, resuming her lively and indifferent manner, “of the fairy tale, where the man finds all the money which he had carried to market suddenly changed into pieces of slate. I have cried down and ruined your whole stock of complimentary discourse by one unlucky observation.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“I want to speak with you,” she said, “and I have placed honest Thornie betwixt Rashleigh and you on purpose. He will be like— Feather-bed ‘twixt castle wall And heavy brunt of cannon ball, while I, your earliest acquaintance in this intellectual family, ask of you how you like us all?”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“But there was in these eyes an expression of art and design, and, on provocation, a ferocity tempered by caution,”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“Tall, stout, and comely, all and each of the five eldest seemed to want alike the Promethean fire of intellect, and the exterior grace and manner which, in the polished world, sometimes supply mental deficiency.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“I did not myself set a high estimation on wealth, and had the affectation of most young men of lively imagination, who suppose that they can better dispense with the possession of money, than resign their time and faculties to the labour necessary to acquire it.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“If an opportunity should occur, I will ask you if y or remember this promise. And I assure you, I will not be angry if I find you have forgotten it, for it is enough that you are sincere in your intentions now.”
― Sir Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“it the best way to silence him upon such subjects, instead”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“We are so apt, in our engrossing egotism, to consider all those accessories which are drawn around us by prosperity, as pertaining and belonging to our own persons, that the discovery of our unimportance, when left to our own proper resources, becomes inexpressibly mortifying.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“I desire no man's regard, Mr. Rashleigh, on such terms as must sink me in my own.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“The seductive love of narrative, when we ourselves are the heroes of the events which we tell, often disregards the attention due to the time and patience of the audience, and the best and wisest have yielded to its fascination.”
― Walter Scott , Rob Roy

“If hell...has one complexion more hideous than another, it is where villainy is masked by hypocracy”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“Traitor’s word never yet hurt honest cause”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“The features of Rashleigh were such, as, having looked upon, we in vain wish to banish from our memory, to which they recur as objects of painful curiosity, although we dwell upon them with a feeling of dislike, and even of disgust.”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy

“the widows of the slain, to the number of eleven score, in deep mourning, riding upon white palfreys, and each bearing her husband's bloody shirt on a spear, appeared”
― Walter Scott, Rob Roy