Walter Scott: Likeness

Walter Scott was Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet. Explore interesting quotes on likeness.

Walter Scott: 302 quotes10 likes

“We are like the herb which flourisheth most when trampled upon”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe

“Now I protest to thee, gentle reader, that I entirely dissent from Francisco de Ubeda in this matter, and hold it the most useful quality of my pen, that it can speedily change from grave to gay, and from description and dialogue to narrative and character. So that, if my quill display no other propertoies of its mothergoose than her mutability, truly I shall be well pleased; and I conceive that you, my worthy friend, will have no occasion for discontent. From the jargon, therefore, of the Highland gillies, I pass to the character of their Chief. It is an important examination, and therefore, like Dogberry, we must spare no wisdom.”

Walter Scott book Waverley

Source: Waverley (1814), Chapter XIX

“So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.”

Walter Scott Marmion

Canto V, st. 12 (Lochinvar, st. 1).
Marmion (1808)

“There is yet spirit in him, were it well directed- but, like the Greek fire, it burns whatever approaches it.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe (1819), Ch. 43, Malvoisin to Mont-Fitchet

“But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like again?”

Walter Scott Marmion

Canto I, introduction, st. 11.
Marmion (1808)

“[…] a stone rolled down hill by an idle truant boy […]. Even such is the course of a narrative like that which you are perusing. The earlier events are studiously dwelt upon, that you, kind reader, may be introduced to the character rather by narrative, than by the duller mdium of direct description; but when the story drwas near its close, we hurry over the circumstances, however important, which your imagination must hvae forestalled, and leave you to suppose those things which it would be abusing your patience to relate at length.”

Walter Scott book Waverley

Source: Waverley (1814), Chapter LXX

“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 honour or observation.”

Countess Brenhilda in Count Robert of Paris (1832), Ch. 25.

“Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain,
Thou art gone, and forever!”

Canto III, stanza 16 (Coronach, stanza 3). <br class="br"> The Lady of the Lake http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3011 (1810)

“With head upraised, and look intent,
And eye and ear attentive bent,
And locks flung back, and lips apart,
Like monument of Grecian art,
In listening mood, she seemed to stand,
The guardian Naiad of the strand.”

Canto I, stanza 17. <br class="br"> The Lady of the Lake http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3011 (1810)

“T is an old tale and often told;
But did my fate and wish agree,
Ne'er had been read, in story old,
Of maiden true betray'd for gold,
That loved, or was avenged, like me.”

Walter Scott Marmion

Canto II, stanza 27.
Marmion (1808)

“Thou and I are but the blind instruments of some irresistible fatality, that hurries us along, like goodly vessels driving before the storm, which are dashed against each other, and so perish.”

Walter Scott book Ivanhoe

Source: Ivanhoe (1819), Ch. 39, De Bois-Guilbert speaking to Rebecca.