Walter Scott

Look back, and smile on perils past.

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

O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!

Faces that have charmed us the most escape us the soonest.

A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass, will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy.

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.

He is the best sailor who can steer within fewest points of the wind, and exact a motive power out of the greatest obstacles.

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.

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.

Each age has deemed the new-born year the fittest time for festal cheer.

It is wonderful what strength of purpose and boldness and energy of will are roused by the assurance that we are doing our duty.

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!

Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn.

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.

To all, to each, a fair good-night, and pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.

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

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!