Scottish Author Quotes

Arthur Conan Doyle

Robert Louis Stevenson

Walter Scott

J. M. Barrie

Iain Banks

Irvine Welsh

Alistair MacLean

I do hate the City of London! It is the only thing which ever comes between us.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Therefore keep in the midst of life. Do not isolate yourself. Be among men and things, and among troubles, and difficulties, and obstacles.

The name of cockroach is a double absurdity, as it is neither a cock nor a roach. The name, indeed, is a contraction of a Lingua-Franca word, which signifies light-shunner, and is therefore peculiarly appropriate to the darkness-loving cockroach.

The head has its confines. The head's got those all right, and the heart. The heart has its reasons.

That nicht he sleipit never ane wink,
Bot still did on the Ladie think.

Taste is, in general, considered as that faculty of the human mind by which we perceive and enjoy whatever is beautiful or sublime in the works of nature or art.

Archibald Alison

The spot of ground on which a man has stood is forever interesting to him.

Alexander Smith

You mightn't happen to have a piece of cheese about you, now? No? Well, many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese-toasted, mostly-and woke up again, and here I were.

Robert Louis Stevenson

In spite of all their kind some elements of worth
With difficulty persist here and there on earth.

Hugh MacDiarmid

He read the great stone Book whereon is writ The riddle of the world from age to age; Knew the fair marvels of the Zodiac, The stars and their processions; had by heart The elemental truths of chemistry. And zealously, within a mental maze, As dense as that which covered Rosamond, His teacher guarded him against the creeds.

Robert Williams Buchanan

There will always be people like me, who believe that to ripple the pages of a printed book is a special experience, one that through the centuries has taken millions from the darkness into the light.

Quintin Jardine

In the first days
Of my distracting grief, I found myself
As women wish to be who love their lords.

Imagine your shadow burning off the page / As the dear world and the dead word disengage

The typical public schoolboy is acceptable at a dance and invaluable in a shipwreck.

There is a voice in the waters of the great sea. It calls to man continually. Sometimes it thunders in the tempest, when the waves leap high and strong, and the wild winds shriek and roar, as if to force our attention. Sometimes it whispers in the calm, and comes rippling on the shingly beach in a still, small voice, as if to solicit our regard.

R. M. Ballantyne

A poem needs nervous tension, like an arrow needs a bowstring.

For honesty is before honor; and though man must write his poems in sounding words, God's poems are printed best in the brave and silent duties of common life.

Isabella Fyvie Mayo

On ilk beugh till embrace Writtin in a bill was O Dowglass, O Dowglass Tender and trewe!

Richard Holland

The law don't like jazz clubs. No one wants anything to do with that kind of trouble.

I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling,
I've felt all its favours and found its decay;
Sweet was its blessing, kind its caressing,
But now it is fled, fled far, far away.

Alison Cockburn

I cannot help thinking his hypotheses are like inverted pyramids - a great deal resting on very little.

John Cunningham Geikie

The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly.

On earth the living have much to bear; the difference is chiefly in the manner of bearing, and my manner of bearing is far from being the best.

Jane Welsh Carlyle

There is nothing sorer to the spirit than falling below what one's lover thinks of one.

Naomi Mitchison

Not even a hand-stitched suit could hide a body gone ruinously to seed. I was tempted to offer some fashion advice, but I didn't think he'd welcome the news that this year, bellies are being worn inside the trousers.