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Quotes by Scottish Authors
"There are things that Scotsmen get and other people don't get in the dialogue. Scottish characters can be pinpointed by a phrase, targeted very quickly."
"Thus a man was born into a fixed relation to certain gods as surely as he was born into a relation to his fellow-men; and his religion... was simply one side of the general scheme of conduct prescribed for him by his position as a member of society."
"The tree was evidently aged, from the size of its stem. It was about six feet high, the branches came out from the stem in a regular and symmetrical manner, and it had all the appearance of a tree in miniature."
"The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity."
"No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish."
"It's very validating when you are new in the industry to get awards. It boosts your self-esteem."
"I will for ever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence, and integrity of the English bar; without which, impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English constitution, can have no existence."
"Hence a ship is said to head the sea, when her course is opposed to the setting or direction of the surges."
"I have often said that just as the French revolution, for instance, understood itself through antiquity, I think our time can be understood through the French revolution. It is quite a natural process to use other times to understand your own time."
"Of the unjust rights which in virtue of this ceremony an iniquitous law gives me over the person and property of another, I cannot legally, but I can morally, divest myself."
"I knew I wanted to have a doll of myself on the cover. I thought, I wanna see myself as a Ken doll."
"The record industry is still pissed off that other people are making money off their business, even if it promotes their products and increases their sales. I think they're still mad about radio."
"There are even more statues of Robert Burns than of any other figure in world literature. Indeed if we discount figures of religion, then only Christopher Columbus has more statues than he worldwide."
"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."
"Wake the power within thee slumbering, trim the plot that's in thy keeping, thou wilt bless the task when reaping sweet labour's prize."
"I am always a beginner. I only try to include different parts of life; the pastoral, the tragic, et cetera."
"I've done enough for a while and people get fed up of seeing you, but apart from that, although I'm young, I need a bit of rest. You could say I have become a house husband. It's not a new man thing, it's just largely a boring man who doesn't mind staying in the house thing."
"I've played in pipe bands in Scotland, and I've always played guitars and drums and stuff."
"At the beginning of this album I discovered the computer and had great fun playing with the thing. And I realized that, not being a good keyboard player, I could write things in very small sections, give them a certain feel and mess about with bends on the keyboard."
"If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in frankness."
"We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead."
"Nothing that's forced can ever be right, if it doesn't come naturally, leave it."
"The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds."
"Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man."
"I didn't have any problem bonding with Honey, but I was plagued with insecurities about my ability to bring up my baby."
"Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them."
"He was certainly in a confused state. I used to go and visit him in Callan Park. They were really - to me they were the best poets those two writing in those days but it wasn't very encouraging because, well, they weren't getting far were they?"
"All successful people these days seem to be neurotic. Perhaps we should stop being sorry for them and start being sorry for me - for being so confounded normal."
"The animated books pay the lowest rates at the Big Two and you can forget about royalties."
"We look upon the enemy of our souls as a conquered foe, so he is, but only to God, not to us."
"Thought once awakened does not again slumber; unfolds itself into a System of Thought; grows, in man after man, generation after generation, - till its full stature is reached, and such System of Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another."
"Human Nature is the only science of man; and yet has been hitherto the most neglected."
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