Frasi di Walter Scott

“[Ferdinando II delle Due Sicilie] Ha ottenuto una forte diminuzione delle spese; ma poi si occupa di cose militari, e le forze armate inghiottono tutti i risparmi. Soltanto il Cielo sa se porterà mai a combattimento i suoi sudditi, perché questo non si può fare con la mera disciplina automatica. Gli attacchi epilettici cui va soggetto e l'enorme corpulenza, inducono molti a volgere lo sguardo verso suo fratello, il Principe Carlo. Ed è un peccato.”

“Il tetro e monotono rumoreggiare dei flutti che venivano incessantemente a scagliarsi contro la riva rocciosa al di sotto, era per l'orecchio ciò che il paesaggio era per l'occhio: un simbolo di invariabile e monotona malinconia, non esente da un certo orrore.”

“Ave Maria! Vergine dolce, | ascolta l'implorazione di una vergine, | da queste rocce aspre e selvagge | giunga fino a te la mia preghiera. || Noi domandiamo sicuri fino al mattino, | anche se gli uomini sono così cattivi. | O Vergine, guarda le pene di una vergine, | o madre, ascolta una fanciulla che ti supplica.”

“Noi costruiamo dei palazzi di neve e piangiamo vedendoli dissolvere.”

“Testi di alcune opere di Walter Scott sul Progetto Gutenberg”

“L'ora è giunta, ma non l'uomo.”

“Quella giovane donna [Jane Austen] aveva, secondo me, il miglior talento che io abbia mai incontrato per descrivere i coinvolgimenti, i sentimenti e i personaggi della vita quotidiana. Del grande babau io scrivo come nessun altro; ma mi è negato lo squisito tocco che rende interessanti cose e personaggi comuni attraverso la verità della descrizione e del sentimento.”

“La vendetta, caro signore, la vendetta, la quale, èur essendo un peccato da gentiluomo come il vino, le orge, con il loro et coetera, è altrettanto poco cristiano, e non altrettanto senza effusione di sangue. E' meglio scavalcare il recinto di un parco per appostare una dama od una donzella, che sparare contro un vecchio.”

“E' fin troppo veroche i nostri vizi ci seducono con la bellezza delle forme esteriori, come la bellezza dei demoni, che i superstiziosi ci rappresentano a congiurare ai danni del genere umano; non si riesce a vederne la innata laidezza finchè non li stringiamo fra le braccia.”

“True love's the gift which God has given To man alone beneath the heaven: It is not fantasy's hot fire, Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly; It liveth not in fierce desire, With dead desire it doth not die; It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind In body and in soul can bind.

Fonte: https://le-citazioni.it/community/translations/243231/#_=_”

“For he that does good, having the unlimited power to do evil, deserves praise not only for the good which he performs, but for the evil which he forbears.”

“The rose is fairest when 't is budding new,
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears.
The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew,
And love is loveliest when embalm'd in tears.”

“Love rules the court, the camp, the grove, and men below, and the saints above, for love is heaven, and heaven is love.”

“Cats are a mysterious kind of folk.”

“Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.”

“Revenge is the sweetest morsel to the mouth, that ever was cooked in hell.”

“All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.”

“O, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!”

“The will to do, the soul to dare”

“True love's the gift which God has given
To man alone beneath the heaven”

“Time will rust the sharpest sword,
Time will consume the strongest cord”

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

“Many a law, many a commandment have I broken, but my word never.”

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

“I have heard men talk about the blessings of freedom," he said to himself, "but I wish any wise man would teach me what use to make of it now that I have it.”

“The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon. But, to be sure, if he lived for fifty years and then died, what would become of me?”

“I envy thee not thy faith, which is ever in thy mouth but never in thy heart nor in thy practice”

“Silence, maiden; thy tongue outruns thy discretion.”

“We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing as moonshine, compared with the education of the heart.”

“Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!”

“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.”

“Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be ay sticking in a tree; it will be growing, Jock, when ye're sleeping.”

“There's a gude time coming.”

“Art thou a friend to Roderick?”

“He’s expected at noon, and no wight till he comes
May profane the great chair, or the porridge of plums;
For the best of the cheer, and the seat by the fire,
Is the undenied right of the Barefooted Friar.”

“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.”

“But with the morning cool reflection came.”

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

“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!”