Scotland Quotes
More Scotland Quotes
O flower of Scotland, when will we see your like again, That fought and died for your wee bit hill and glen And stood against him, proud Edward's army, And sent him homeward tae think again.
Roy Williamson— 1968 'Flower of Scotland', stanza 1. Unofficial Anthem of Scotland, performed by the Corries.
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair: For when they reach the scene of crime Macavity's not there!
— Macavity: The Mystery Cat
'In Scotland,' Tavish muttered, picking up my bags,'the women dothehod carrying whilewe blokesretiretothe nearest pubto deliberate upon the role of labour in society.'
— 1992 A Calculated Risk.
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking wareThat jaups in luggies; But, if ye wish her gratefu'prayer, Gie her a Haggis!
Robert Burns— 1786 'To a Haggis', stanza 8.
Scotland is not wholly surrounded by the seaunfortunately.
Grieve— 1934 Scottish Scene,'The Sea'.
Iceland, though it lies so far to the north that it is partly within the Arctic Circle, is, like Norway, Scotland, and Ireland, affected by the Gulf Stream, so that considerable portions of it are quite habitable.
harry johnston— Pioneers in Canada
For the cleansing of that horror, if cleanse it they could, I would welcome the English in suzerainty over Scotland till the end of time. I would welcome the end of Braid Scots and Gaelic, our culture, our history, our nationhood under the heels of a Chinese army of occupation if it could cleanse the Glasgow slums, give a surety of food and playthe elementary right of every human beingto those people of the abyss?
Lewis Grassic Gibbon— 1934 Scottish Scene,'Glasgow' (with Hugh MacDiarmid).
He canna Scotland see wha yet Canna see the Infinite, And Scotland in true scale to it.
Grieve— 1926 A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle, l.2527-9.
The rose of all the world is not for me. I want for my part Only the little white rose of Scotland That smells sharp and sweetand breaks the heart.
Grieve— 1934 Stony Limits and other poems,'The Little White Rose'.
Scotland small? Our multiform, infinite Scotland small?
Grieve— 1974 'Direadh'.
If there is writing on Hadrian's Wall, it reads that the English should leave Scotland to its own devices.
Simon Heffer— 1999 Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinventing of England.
I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.
Rev Sydney Smith— 1815 Letter to Lord Holland, [August]. In The Letters of Sydney Smith edited by Nowell C Smith (1953), vol.1.
The vice of meanness, condemned in every other country, is in Scotland translated into a virtue called 'thrift'.
David Thomson— 1987 Nairn in Darkness and Light.
A symbol of all that's perfectly hideous about Scotland
Irvine Welsh— 1996 On the poet Hugh MacDiarmid. In Scotland on Sunday, 28 Jan.
We usually think that a strong economy leads to an increase in life satisfaction among the population. We found that's not the case in Scotland.
david blanchflower— Dartmouth College news release 30 July 2004
If there's a sword-like sangThat can cut Scotland clearO a' the warld besideRax me the hilt o't here.For there's nae jewal tillFrae the rest o earth it's free,Wi the starry separatenessI'd fain to Scotland gie.
hugh macdiarmid— To Circumjack Cencrastus
Beloved Scotland of the winter and the hills! ’Tis little that thou’lt get from them, but they will make thee hard and brave!
neil munro— The New Road, ch. 23
Oatmeal indeed supplies the common people of Scotland with the greatest and best part of their food, which is in general much inferior to that of their neighbours of the same rank in England.
Adam Smith— Chapter VIII, p. 91 (Oatmeal in England makes for great horses, in Scotland Great Men...)
The Bruce , with which the Scottish contribution to English literature begins, long held its place as the national epic of Scotland.
john barbour— Kenneth Sisam Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964) p. 108.
England may as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrushes as to fetter the step of Freedom, more proud and firm in this youthful land than where she treads the sequestered glens of Scotland, or couches herself among the magnificent mountains of Switzerland.
lydia maria child— Supposititious Speech of James Otis. The Rebels, Chap. iv.
A Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist, who does not love Scotland better than truth.
samuel johnson— Samuel Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775).
Seeing Scotland, Madam, is only seeing a worse England. It is seeing the flower gradually fade away to the naked stalk.
— Samuel Johnson in conversation with Mrs. Thrale, April 8, 1778. Cited from James Boswell Life of Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989) p. 914.
The rose of all the world is not for me. I want for my part Only the little white rose of Scotland That smells sharp and sweet - and breaks the heart.
hugh macdiarmid— Hugh MacDiarmid, The Little White Rose.
Give me but one hour of Scotland, Let me see it ere I die.
— William E. Aytoun, Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers—Charles Edward at Versailles, line 111.
I'll drink a cup to Scotland yet, Wi' a' the honours three.
— Rev. Henry Scott Riddell, Toast to Scotland.
Beloved Scotland of the winter and the hills! ’Tis little that thou’lt get from them, but they will make thee hard and brave!
— The New Road, ch. 23 (Sourced)
Lyndsay, with all his ancient coarseness…maintained for two centuries, even among the precise, his position as the popular poet of Scotland.
— George Gordon The Discipline of Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946) p. 91.
Up wi' the flowers o' Scotland, The emblems o' the free, Their guardians for a thousand years, Their guardians still we'll be. A foe had better brave the de'il Within his reeky cell, Than our thistle's purple bonnet, Or bonny heather bell.
thomas hood— Thomas Hood, The Flowers of Scotland; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 787.
From Perth, Scotland
— "Reader one moment stop and think,
That I am in eternity and you are on the brink."
