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/#_=_”

“When, musing on companions gone,
We doubly feel ourselves alone.”

“So shall he strive, in changeful hue,
Field, feast, and combat, to renew,
And loves, and arms, and harpers' glee,
And all the pomp of chivalry.”

“Such is the custom of Branksome Hall.”

“Ah, County Guy, the hour is nigh,
The sun has left the lea.
The orange flower perfumes the bower,
The breeze is on the sea.”

“I am she, O most bucolical juvenal, under whose charge are placed the milky mothers of the herd.”

“And better had they ne'er been born,
Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.”

“[Romeo … transfers his affections from Rosalind to Juliet] 'A lover, my dear Lady Betty,' said Flora, 'may, I conceive, persevere in his suit, under very discouraging circumstances. Affection can (now and then) withstand very severe storms of rigour, but not a long polar frost of downright indifference. Don't, even with your attractions, try the experiment upon any lover whose faith you value. Love will subsist on wonderfully little hope, but not altogether without it.”

“It's no fish ye're buying, it's men's lives.”

“A mother's pride, a father's joy.”

“"I'm no gaun to let naebody see the letter," sobbed the boy, "till I gie't to Mr. Lovel, for I am a faithfu' servant o' the office—if it werena for the powny."
"Very right, my little man," said Ochiltree, turning the reluctant pony's head towards Monkbarns; "but we'll guide him atween us." …
[They met Lovel on the way, ] and Davie, who insisted upon a literal execution of his commission by going on to Monkbarns, was with difficulty prevailed upon to surrender the packet to its proper owner, although he met him a mile nearer than the place he had been directed to. "But my minnie said, I maun be sure to get twenty shillings and five shillings for the postage, and ten shillings and sixpence for the express—there's the paper."
"Let me see—let me see," said Oldbuck, putting on his spectacles, and examining the crumpled copy of regulations to which Davie appealed. "Express, per man and horse, one day, not to exceed ten shillings and sixpence. One day? why, it's not an hour—Man and horse? why, 'tis a monkey on a starved cat!"”

“Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife!
To all the sensual world proclaim,
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.”

“And come he slow, or come he fast,
It is but Death who comes at last.”

“The sun never sets on the immense empire of Charles V.”

“Recollect that the Almighty, who gave the dog to be companion of our pleasures and our toils, hath invested him with a nature noble and incapable of deceit.”

“Oh for a blast of that dread horn
On Fontarabian echoes borne!”

“Oh, Brignal banks are wild and fair,
And Greta woods are green,
And you may gather garlands there
Would grace a summer's queen.”

“Pax vobiscum will answer all queries. If you go or come, eat or drink, bless or ban, Pax vobiscum carries you through it all. It is as useful to a friar as a broom-stick to a witch, or a wand to a conjuror.”

“For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.”

“"What remains?" cried Ivanhoe; "Glory, maiden, glory! which gilds our sepulchre and embalms our name."”

“Spur not an unbroken horse; put not your plowshare too deep into new land.”

“If you keep a thing seven years, you are sure to find a use for it.”

“To all, to each, a fair good-night,
And pleasing dreams, and slumbers light!”

“Who o'er the herd would wish to reign,
Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain!
Vain as the leaf upon the stream,
And fickle as a changeful dream;
Fantastic as a woman's mood,
And fierce as Frenzy's fever'd blood.
Thou many-headed monster thing,
Oh who would wish to be thy king!”

“And darest thou then
To beard the lion in his den,
The Douglas in his hall?”

“You have power, rank, command, influence; we have wealth, the source both of our strength and weakness; the value of these toys, ten times multiplied, would not influence half so much as your slightest wish.”

“Where lives the man that has not tried
How mirth can into folly glide,
And folly into sin!”

“A light on Marmion’s visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye:
With dying hand, above his head,
He shook the fragment of his blade,
And shouted "Victory!-
Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!"”

“The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.”

“There is a southern proverb—fine words butter no parsnips.”