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A concise but comprehensive collection of famous Scottish quotes.

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Scotland

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Publié par	Crombie Jardine Publishing Limited
Date de parution	01 octobre 2006
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781783722983
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0250€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

The Concise Dictionary of Scottish Quotations

Betty Kirkpatrick
Crombie Jardine Publishing Limited Unit 17, 196, Rose Street, Edinburgh, EH2 4AT
www.crombiejardine.com

This edition was first published by Crombie Jardine Publishing Limited in 2006
Copyright © Crombie Jardine Publishing Limited, 2006
All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 10: 1-905102-89-5
ISBN 13: 978-1-905102-89-1

Written by Betty Kirkpatrick
Typeset by Ben Ottridge
Printed and bound in the UK by William Clowes, Beccles, Suffolk
Dedication
For my grandchildren Iain, Conall, Flora, Corin and Rory.
INTRODUCTION
In the second part of the twentieth century there began to be a marked increase in the number of reference books available in bookshops. No longer was the reference library of the average fairly educated household restricted to one dictionary, probably dog-eared and several decades old, one out-dated copy of Roget’s Thesaurus, either much-thumbed or pristine, according to the needs of the household, and possibly an old copy of Fowler’s English Usage.
This increased interest in reference publishing started with dictionaries and a great variety of these, in various shapes and sizes, began to be made available to the public. This sparked off an interest in other kinds of reference books. Existing ones began to be regularly updated and a whole deluge of new ones appeared. These included thesauruses, guides to good usage, guides to good grammar, guides to correct spelling, hints on how to improve your writing, books of idioms and so on.
They also included a varied range of books of quotations. A quotation in the context of dictionaries of quotations is a piece of writing by someone, usually someone well-known, that seems so apt or memorable that other people refer to it in their own speech or writing. Up till that point, there had really been only one well-known dictionary of quotations and this was the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations . Now many more became available and seemed to whet the public’s appetite.
Some people use dictionaries of quotations like this one simply for the pleasure of browsing through them. Browsing, after all, is one of the invaluable uses of reference books and a great deal of knowledge can be acquired in a relatively painless way when browsing.
Browsers of dictionaries of quotations may find pleasure in identifying a quotation that seems particularly appropriate to some situation in their own lives. However, some people may use a dictionary of quotations, such as this one, for a more specific purpose. They may, for example, use a dictionary of quotations to find out the source of something they have encountered in their reading, or to check the exact wording of a quotation they half-remember.
Many people use dictionaries of quotations seeking inspiration for a speech which they have to make. A quotation makes an excellent hook on which to hang an after-dinner speech, as many people have discovered.
This particular dictionary of quotations is, of course, culled mainly from Scottish writers, although some quotations have been included from English writers referring to the Scots or Scotland. We do like to know what other people are saying about us!
The quotations in this book are mainly historical, many of them having their source in well-known older Scottish writers, although other professions are also represented. Scotland is fortunate in having had so many famous writers who wrote so prolifically and so memorably. Indeed, you could easily fill a considerably larger book than this with memorable quotations from Robert Burns alone.
As well as quotations this book contains many traditional sayings and proverbs. There is a wealth of these, from weather hints to advice on diet and health and how to look after your money. Several of them are as true as they are succinct.
A short glossary has been added as a guide to the Scots words in the book. This is particularly useful with reference to the traditional sayings and proverbs which contain many Scots words. It will be useful, too, for those writers who have penned their thoughts in Scots, although many of the famous quoted writers wrote in English.

Betty Kirkpatrick 2006
William Alexander, Sir (c.1567-1640), courtier, poet and politician

The deepest rivers make least din, The silent soule doth most abound in care
Aurora (1604)

The weaker sex, to piety more prone
Doomsday

What thing so good which not some harme may bring? Even to be happy is a dangerous thing Darius (1603)

Isabel Alison (d.1681), Covenanter

I leave my testimony against all the blood shed on both scaffolds, and in the fields, and seas; and against all the cruelty used against the people of the Lord—I leave my testimony against profanity of all sorts, and likewise against lukewarmness and indifference in the Lord’s matter
The Dying Testimony and Last Words of Isabel Alison (January, 1681)
She was hanged in Edinburgh for publicly protesting against the cruel treatment of those who were Sympathizers of the Covenanters

John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), physician and humorist

Law is a bottomless pit
The name of a satirical pamphlet (1712)

Hame’s hame, be it ever so hamely
The History of John Bull (1712)

All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies

Robert Ayton, Sir (1570-1638), poet and courtier

To live upon Tabacco and on hope, The ones but smoake, the other is but winde Upone Tabacco

Yes, I have died for love, as others do; But praised by God, it was in such a sort That I revived within an hour or two
On Love
William Edmonstoune Aytoun (1813-65), lawyer and humorist

There was glory on his forehead, There was lustre in his eye, And he never walked to battle, More proudly than to die The Execution of Montrose, Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers (1849)

Nowhere beats the hearts so kindly As beneath the tartan plaid
Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers (1849)

Joanna Baillie (1762-1851), playwright and poet
But poverty parts good company
Poverty Parts Good Company

Ladies of four score and upwards cannot expect to be robust, and need not be gay
From a letter to Mary Somerville (1843)

The theatre is a school in which much good or evil may be learned
A Series of Plays (1798)

Alexander Bain (1818-1903), Scottish philosopher and psychologist
Instinct is untaught ability
Senses and Intellect
Arthur James Balfour (1848-1930), Conservative politician and British Prime Minister

History does not repeat itself. Historians repeat each other
The energies of our system will decay; the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude. Man will go down into the pit and all his thoughts will perish
The Foundation of Belief (1895)

It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth
From a letter to Mrs Drew (1918)

Lady Frances Balfour (1858-1931), writer and suffragist

Golf has ceased to be a peculiarly national game. It is now no longer a pastime for the impecunious Scot, armed with two or three clubs, and a feather ball, it has become a professional sport, pursued by devastating hordes of foreigners among whom the American tongue rises shrill and strident
Ne Obliviscaris: Dinna Forget (1930)
Arthur Balmerino, Lord (1688-1746), Jacobite
I shall die with a true heart and undaunted; for I think no man fit to live that is not fit to die; nor am I in any ways concerned at what I have done
Said to one of his prison visitors before his execution in London in August 1746

J M Barrie, Sir (1860-1937), playwright and novelist

We are undoubtedly a sentimental people, and it sometimes plays havoc with that other celebrated sense of ours, the practical
From a speech to the Royal Scottish Corporation on 30 November 1928

The scientific man is the only person who has anything new to say and who does not know how to say it

James Beattie (1735-1803), philosopher and poet

We who live in Scotland are obliged to study English from books, like a dead language which we can understand but cannot speak. Our style smells of the lamp and we are slaves of the language, and are continually afraid of committing gross blunders
Quoted in An Account of the Life and Writings of James Beattie LL D (1806)
John Hamilton Belhaven, Lord (1656-1708)

None can destroy Scotland, save Scotland’s self; hold your hands from the pen, you are secure
From a speech beseeching the Scottish parliament (November 1706) not to sign the Treaty of Union with England, quoted in Daniel Defoe’s History of the Union (1785)
Isabella Bird (1831-1904), English traveller and writer

There were dirty little children as usual rolling in the gutter or sitting stolidly on the kerb-stone; as usual, haggard, wrinkled, vicious faces were looking out of the dusty windows above, and an air of joylessness, weariness, and struggle hung over all
Notes on Old Edinburgh (1869)

Limited water and unlimited whisky, crowded dens and unwholesome air; we need nothing more to make a city full of drunkards
Notes on Old Edinburgh (1869)

John Stuart Blackie (1809-95), linguist and nationalist
Who owns these ample hills?—a lord who lives ten months in London and in Scotland two; O’er the wide moors with gun in hand he drives; And, Scotland, this is all he knows of you!
Absentee Proprietor, Lays and Legends of Ancient Greece and other poems (1857)

James Boswell (1740-95), biographer of Samuel Johnson

Dr Johnson expatiated rather too strongly upon the benefits derived to