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
From its destitution of trees, Scotland was once a by-word; now it is a garden of beauty. ~ Frederick Douglass
Give me but one hour of Scotland,
Let me see it ere I die. ~ William E. Aytoun

Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba) is a country forming the northernmost third of Great Britain. An independent kingdom until 1707, it is now a constituent part of United Kingdom with limited powers of self-government.

Quotes

  • O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
    For whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent;
    Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
    Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content.
    • Robert Burns, The Cotter's Saturday Night (1786), Stanza 20.
  • From the lone shieling of the misty island
    Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas –
    Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
    And we in dreams behold the Hebrides!
    Fair these broad meads, these hoary woods are grand;
    But we are exiles from our fathers' land.
    • "Canadian Boat Song", an anonymous poem first published in Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, September 1829, and ostensibly translated from the Gaelic. There has been much debate as to the poem's authorship.
  • From the time of the North Briton of the unprincipled Wilkes, a notion has been entertained that the moral spine in Scotland is more flexible than in England. The truth however is, that an elementary difference exists in the public feelings of the two nations quite as great as in the idioms of their respective dialects. The English are a justice-loving people, according to charter and statute; the Scotch are a wrong-resenting race, according to right and feeling: and the character of liberty among them takes its aspect from that peculiarity.
    • John Galt Ringan Gilhaize (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1823) vol. 3, p. 313.
  • My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
    My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer.
  • I do not discuss the Scotch cases. They are not binding on us as authorities, though of the greatest service, as containing the opinions and arguments of able and accomplished lawyers.
    • Bramwell, L.J., Johnson v. Raylton (1881), L. R. 7 Q. B. 449; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 222.
  • O Caledonia! stern and wild,
    Meet nurse for a poetic child!
    Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
    Land of the mountain and the flood,
    Land of my sires! what mortal hand
    Can e'er untie the filial band,
    That knits me to thy rugged strand!
  • Of course, Scotsmen are not foreigners. They are fellow-subjects of ours, and they are in the same position as any other fellow-subjects, with the important exception that their system of jurisprudence differs in very important particulars from ours . . . and to call a Scotsman an English subject is a perfect absurdity.
    • Higby, L.J., Mac Iver v. Burns (1895), L. R. 2 C. D. [1895], p. 637; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 221-222.
  • 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.
  • I will venture to say, there is no country existing which is at present more flourishing; no people whose general condition is better, or whose rights and liberties are more firmly secured.
    • Lord President, Downie's Case (1794), 24 How. St. Tr. 187; reported in James William Norton-Kyshe, Dictionary of Legal Quotations (1904), p. 222.
  • It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.
    • Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir (1855), Volume I, p. 15.
  • That knuckle-end of England—that land of Calvin, oat-cakes, and sulphur.
    • Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir (1855), Volume II, p. 17.
  • [Upon King James VI's coronation as King of Scots] Sirrah! Ye are God's vassal; there are twa kingdoms in Scotland; there is Christ Jesus the King of the Kirk, whose subject King James VI is, and of whose kingdom he is not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member.
    • Andrew Melville in Klieforth and Munro's The Scottish Invention of America, Democracy and Human Rights: A History of Liberty and Freedom from the Ancient Celts to the New Millenium, page 199.
  • The side of my family that comes from Scotland, hell, they didn’t even worry about fighting people outside of Scotland. Highlanders and lowlanders just fought the hell out of each other.
  • NEVER forget that we are the bastard people of a mongrel nation.
  • We’re a mongrel nation and proud and the Aryans can fuck off.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 692-93.
  • 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.
  • Hear, Land o' Cakes and brither Scots
    Frae Maiden Kirk to Johnny Groat's.
    • Robert Burns, On Capt. Grose's Peregrinations Thro' Scotland.
  • It's guid to be merry and wise,
    It's guid to be honest and true,
    It's guid to support Caledonia's cause,
    And bide by the buff and the blue!
  • Only a few industrious Scots perhaps, who indeed are dispersed over the face of the whole earth. But as for them, there are no greater friends to Englishmen and England, when they are out on't, in the world, than they are. And for my own part, I would a hundred thousand of them were there [Virginia] for we are all one countrymen now, ye know, and we should find ten times more comfort of them there than we do here.
    • George Chapman, Eastward Ho, Act III, scene 2. Written by Chapman, Jonson, Marston. James I was offended at the reflexion on Scotchmen and the authors were threatened with imprisonment. Extract now found only in a few editions.
  • The Scots are poor, cries surly English pride;
    True is the charge, nor by themselves denied.
    Are they not then in strictest reason clear,
    Who wisely come to mend their fortunes here?
  • The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high-road that leads him to England.
  • In all my travels I never met with any one Scotchman but what was a man of sense. I believe everybody of that country that has any, leaves it as fast as they can.
    • Francis Lockier, Scotchmen.
  • Now the summer's in prime
    Wi' the flowers richly blooming,
    And the wild mountain thyme
    A' the moorlands perfuming.
    To own dear native scenes
    Let us journey together,
    Where glad innocence reigns
    'Mang the braes o' Balquhither.
    • Robert Tannahill, The Braes o' Balquhither
  • In short, he and the Scotch have no way of redeeming the credit of their understandings, but by avowing that they have been consummate villains. Stavano bene; per star meglio, stanno qui.

See also

  • Encyclopedic article on Scotland at Wikipedia
  • Media related to Scotland at Wikimedia Commons
  • Scotland travel guide from Wikivoyage
  • The dictionary definition of scotland at Wiktionary
  • Works related to Scotland at Wikisource
This article is issued from Wikiquote. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.