Frasi di Walter Scott

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“[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/#_=_”

“Chivalry!-why, maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection-the stay of the oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the tyrant-Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds the best protection in her lance and her sword.”

“Thus aged men, full loth and slow,
The vanities of life forego,
And count their youthful follies o'er,
Till Memory lends her light no more.”

“O fading honours of the dead!
O high ambition, lowly laid!”

“In man's most dark extremity
Oft succour dawns from Heaven.”

“Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright
As in that well-remember'd night
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whisper'd love.”

“Vacant heart, and hand, and eye,
Easy live and quiet die.”

“Bluid is thicker than water.”

“I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.”

“No pale gradations quench his ray,
No twilight dews his wrath allay.”

“Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances!”

“Soldier, rest! thy warfare o'er,
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking;
Dream of battled fields no more,
Days of danger, nights of waking.”

“In the lost battle,
Borne down by the flying,
Where mingles war's rattle
With groans of the dying.”

“Randolph, thy wreath has lost a rose.”

“Pride and jealousy there was in his eye, for his life had been spent in asserting rights which were constantly liable to invasion; and the prompt, fiery, and resolute disposition of the man, had been kept constantly upon the alert by the circumstances of his situation.”

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

“Spangling the wave with lights as vain
As pleasures in the vale of pain,
That dazzle as they fade.”

“The playbill, which is said to have announced the tragedy of Hamlet, the character of the Prince of Denmark being left out.”

“The way was long, the wind was cold,
The Minstrel was infirm and old;
His withered cheek, and tresses gray,
Seemed to have known a better day.”

“Her blue eyes sought the west afar,
For lovers love the western star.”

“Ah! County Guy, the hour is nigh,
The sun has left the lea.”

“She look'd down to blush, and she look'd up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.”

“There is no European nation which, within the course of half a century, or little more, has undergone so complete a change as this kingdom of Scotland. The effects of the insurrection of the 1745 — the destruction of the patriarchal power of the Highland chiefs — the abolition of the heritable jurisdictions of the Lowland nobility and barons — the total eradication of the Jacobite party […]. […] This race has now almost entirely vanished from the land, and with it, doubtless, much absurd political prejudice — but also many living examples of singular ad disinterested attachment to the principles of loyalty which they received from their fathers, and of old Scottish faith, hospitality, worth, and honour. […] for the purpose of preserving some idea of the ancient manners of which I have witnessed the almost total extinction, I have embodied in imaginary scenes […].”

“I was not always a man of woe.”

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

“November’s sky is chill and drear,
November’s leaf is red and sear.”

“when we had a king, and a chancellor, and parliament-men o' our ain, we could aye peeble them wi' stanes when they werena gude bairns - But naebody's nails can reach the length o' Lunnon.”

“Respect was mingled with surprise,
And the stern joy which warriors feel
In foeman worthy of their steel.”

“"Lambe them, lads! lambe them!" a cant phrase of the time derived from the fate of Dr. Lambe, an astrologer and quack, who was knocked on the head by the rabble in Charles the First's time.”

“Profan'd the God-given strength, and marr'd the lofty line.”