O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive!
Credit is like a looking-glass, which when once sullied by a breath, may be wiped clear again; but if once cracked can never be repaired.
Each age has deemed the new-born year the fittest time for festal cheer.
I will tear this folly from my heart, though every fibre bleed as I rend it away!
We often praise the evening clouds, And tints so gay and bold, But seldom think upon our God, Who tinged these clouds with gold.
Fight on, brave knights! Man dies, but glory lives! Fight on; death is better than defeat! Fight on brave knights! for bright eyes behold your deeds!
Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, Come saddle your horses, and call up your men; Come open the West Port, and let me gang free, And it’s room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee!
One crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name.
We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt.
If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors.
Revenge, the sweetest morsel to the mouth that ever was cooked in hell.
November’s sky is chill and drear, November’s leaf is red and sear.
Cats are a mysterious kind of folk. There is more passing in their minds than we are aware of.
Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.
A Christmas gambol oft could cheer The poor man’s heart through half the year.
Nothing is more the child of art than a garden.
Real valor consists not in being insensible to danger; but in being prompt to confront and disarm it.
Heap on more wood! – the wind is chill; But let it whistle as it will, We’ll keep our Christmas merry still.
Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land.
Still from the sire the son shall hear Of the stern strife, and carnage drear, Of Flodden’s fatal field, When shiver’d was fair Scotland’s spear, And broken was her shield!