Walter Scott
How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.Collection: Parenting
Teach your children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.Collection: Wisdom
O! many a shaft, at random sent, Finds mark the archer little meant! And many a word, at random spoken, May soothe or wound a heart that's broken!Collection: Moving
Each age has deemed the new-born year the fittest time for festal cheer.Collection: New
The race of mankind would perish did they cease to aid each other. We cannot exist without mutual help. All therefore that need aid have a right to ask it from their fellow-men; and no one who has the power of granting can refuse it without guilt.Collection: Power
Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.Collection: Business
Faces that have charmed us the most escape us the soonest.Collection: Beauty
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, And men below, and saints above: For love is heaven, and heaven is love.Collection: Men
A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.Collection: Knowledge
When thinking about companions gone, we feel ourselves doubly alone.Collection: Alone
O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!Collection: Wisdom
For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.Collection: Attitude
There is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine.Collection: Religion
It is wonderful what strength of purpose and boldness and energy of will are roused by the assurance that we are doing our duty.Collection: Strength
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 either honor or observation.Collection: Men
A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass, will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy.Collection: Truth
He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.Collection: Power
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.Collection: Men
Success - keeping your mind awake and your desire asleep.Collection: Success
Look back, and smile on perils past.Collection: Smile
To all, to each, a fair good-night, and pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.Collection: Dreams
Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn.Collection: Nature
We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt.
Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the Shore of a dark Scottish lake.
If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors.
Discretion is the perfection of reason, and a guide to us in all the duties of life.
To the timid and hesitating everything is impossible because it seems so.
Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness.
What I have to say is far more important than how long my eyelashes are.
If you once turn on your side after the hour at which you ought to rise, it is all over. Bolt up at once.
The half hour between waking and rising has all my life proved propitious to any task which was exercising my invention... It was always when I first opened my eyes that the desired ideas thronged upon me.
What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it.
He that climbs the tall tree has won right to the fruit, He that leaps the wide gulf should prevail in his suit.
To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue.
War is the only game in which both sides lose.Collection: War
A sound head, an honest heart, and an humble spirit are the three best guides through time and to eternity.Collection: Heart
Without courage there cannot be truth, and without truth there can be no other virtue.Collection: Courage
Sleep in peace, and wake in joy.Collection: Sleep
Great talent has always a little madness mixed up with it.Collection: Littles
Tears are the softening showers which cause the seed of heaven to spring up in the human heart.Collection: Spring
Caution comes too late when we are in the midst of evils.Collection: Evil
The willow which bends to the tempest often escapes better than the oak which resists it.Collection: Adversity
The will to do, the soul to dare..Collection: Inspirational
Every hour has its end.Collection: Hours
I cannot tell how the truth may be; I say the tale as it was said to me.Collection: Truth
If you keep a thing seven years, you are sure to find a use for it.Collection: Years
Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land.Collection: Patriotic
Heaven know its time; the bullet has its billetCollection: Heaven
come he slow or come he fast it is but death that comes at lastCollection: Death
The chain of friendship, however bright, does not stand the attrition of constant close contact.Collection: Friendship