Portal:Scotland/Selected quotes
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" ... I have not yet begun to fight! ... "
" ... Devolution will kill nationalism stone dead ... "
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" ... I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject ... "
" ... People in Scotland have a queer idea of the arts. They think you can be an artist in your spare time, though nobody expects you to be a spare-time dustman, engineer, lawyer or brain surgeon ... "
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" ... The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none ... "
" ... This is our land, this is our Scotland, these are our people, these are our men, our works, our women and children: can you beat it? ... "
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" ... I'm not young enough to know everything ... "
" ... When one door closes another door opens, but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us ... "
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" ... You ought to be roasted alive, though even then you would not be to my taste ... "
— J. M. Barrie speaking to George Bernard Shaw
" ... We are often unable to tell people what they need to know because they want to know something else ... "
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" ... He who has provoked the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it ... "
— J. M. Barrie speaking to George Bernard Shaw
" ... You think a wall as solid as the earth separates civilisation from barbarism. I tell you the division is a sheet of glass ... "
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" ... Every line of strength in American history is a line coloured with Scottish blood ... "
" ... The result of our present enquiry is that we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end ... "
— James Hutton on the immensity of geological time at the Royal Society of Edinburgh
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" ... Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practice to deceive ... "
" ... Look to your consciences and remember that the theatre of the world is wider than the realm of England ... "
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" ... Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others ... "
" ... Work is the grand cure of all maladies and miseries that ever beset mankind ... "
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" ... All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies ... "
" ... Where all is compulsion and enforcement, it’s the bully that rules ... "
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" ... It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it ... "
" ... Did not strong connections draw me elsewhere, I believe Scotland would be the country I would choose to end my days in ... "
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" ... Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them ... "
" ... We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery ... "
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" ... We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation ... "
— Voltaire
" ... Many a clever boy is flogged into a dunce and many an original composition corrected into mediocrity ... "
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" ... If something's neither here nor there, where the hell is it? ... "
" ... The artist cannot attain to mastery in his art unless he is endowed in the highest degree with the faculty of invention ... "
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" ... Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open ... "
" ... The world is neither Scottish, English, nor Irish, neither French, Dutch, nor Chinese, but human ... "
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" ... Preparing youngsters for failure is easy; it’s preparing them for success that’s really difficult ... "
" ... The battle for conservation will go on endlessly. It is part of the universal battle between right and wrong ... "
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" ... God help England if she had no Scots to think for her ... "
" ... We have all taken risks in the making of war. Isn’t it time that we should take risks to make peace? ... "
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" ... The cruellest lies are often told in silence ... "
" ... It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important ... "
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" ... Science is the greatest antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition ... "
" ... William Wallace sheds as bright a glory upon his valorous nation as ever was shed upon their country by the greatest men of Greece or Rome ... "
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" ... You talked of Scotland as a lost cause and that is not true. Scotland is an unwon cause ... "
— John Steinbeck, in a letter to Mrs John F. Kennedy
" ... We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing ... "
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" ... In Scotland, there is no such thing as bad weather - only the wrong clothes ... "
" ... this nation must rank among the most enlightened in the universe. Politics, religion and literature have made of Scotland something beyond compare ... "
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" ... To live for a time close to great minds is the best kind of education ... "
" ... Edinburgh is a cross between Copenhagen and Barcelona, except in Copenhagen they speak more understandable English ... "
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" ... Some of my plays peter out and some pan out ... "
— J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan
" ... There are two rules for drinking whisky. First, never take whisky without water, and second, never take water without whisky ... "
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" ... A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one ... "
" ... Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I’m very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that ... "
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“ | ... Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. ... | ” |
- — Lord Kelvin, spoken in 1895.
“ | ... I would rather have a Scot come from Scotland to govern the people of this kingdom well and justly than that you should govern them ill in the sight of all the world. ... | ” |
- — Louis IX of France, speaking to his eldest son, Louis.
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" ... Old and young, we are all on our last cruise ... "
" ... None of Nature's landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild ... "
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" ... A place for everything, and everything in its place ... "
" ... All politicians have vanity. Some wear it more gently than others ... "
— Sir David Steel, speaking in 1985
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" ... Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one ... "
" ... Every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective ... "
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" ... God gave us our memories so that we might have roses in December ... "
" ... A man, as a general rule, owes very little to what he is born with – a man is what he makes of himself ... "
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" ... When Scotland forgets Burns, then history will forget Scotland ... "
" ... Women do not find it difficult nowadays to behave like men, but they often find it extremely difficult to behave like gentlemen ... "
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" ... My theory is that all of Scottish cuisine is based on a dare ... "
" ... A man may well be condemned, not for doing something, but for doing nothing ... "
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" ... Without humility there can be no humanity ... "
" ... I don't pretend to understand the Universe - it's a great deal bigger than I am ... "
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" ... Fashion as King is sometimes a very stupid ruler ... "
" ... There is nothing new to be discovered in physics now. All that remains is more and more precise measurement ... "
— Lord Kelvin, address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 1900
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" ... Before anything else, preparation is the key to success ... "
" ... A good pun may be admitted among the smaller excellencies of lively conversation ... "
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" ... A man without a goal is like a ship without a rudder ... "
" ... I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward ... "
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" ... Peace is that state in which fear of any kind is unknown ... "
" ... There are two great days in a person's life - the day we are born and the day we discover why ... "
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" ... A man with God is always in the majority ... "
" ... Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own ... "
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" ... There is only one word for aid that is without strings, and that word is blackmail ... "
" ... It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth ... "
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" ... In my end is my beginning ... "
" ... The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there ... "
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" ... Custom, then, is the great guide of human life ... "
" ... Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things ... "
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" ... My wife says I'm Scotch by absorption ... "
" ... Parents learn a lot about coping with life from their children ... "
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" ... Diffused knowledge immortalizes itself ... "
" ... The cloven-foot of self-interest was now and then to be seen aneath the robe of public principle ... "
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" ... All I've got against golf is that it takes you so far from the clubhouse ... "
" ... I have always found that the man whose second thoughts are good is worth watching ... "
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" ... No laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober ... "
" ... It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value ... "
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" ... He's very clever, but sometimes his brains go to his head ... "
— Margot Asquith speaking of F. E. Smith
" ... When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe ... "
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" ... Is there anything worn under the kilt? No, it's all in perfect working order ... "
" ... The true definition of a snob is one who craves for what separates men rather than for what unites them ... "
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" ... Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves ... "
" ... Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts ... "
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" ... Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world ... "
" ... To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life ... "
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" ... A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence ... "
" ... The surest way to get a thing in this life is to be prepared for doing without it, to the exclusion even of hope ... "
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" ... The worst of being a doctor is that one's mistakes matter so much ... "
" ... The ideal board of directors should be made up of three men - two dead and the other dying ... "
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" ... I have forgot a great deal more than most other men know ... "
" ... I tell you truly, liberty is the best of things; never live under the halter of slavery ... "
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" ... A scot is a man who keeps the Sabbath and everything else he can lay his hands on ... "
" ... Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity ... "
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" ... I think Calvinism has done more damage to Scotland than drugs ever did ... "
" ... A sense of proportion is anathema to the Glasgow drinker. When he goes at the bevvy it is a fight to the death ... "
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" ... Doctors, like minicab drivers, are the other idiots to whom we trust our lives ... "
" ... When shall I see Scotland again? Never shall I forget the happy days I passed there amidst odious smells, barbarous sounds, bad suppers, excellent hearts and the most enlightened and cultivated understandings ... "
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" ... A witty statesman said, you might prove anything by figures ... "
" ... Generally speaking the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous ... "
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" ... Jimmy Hill is to football what King Herod was to babysitting ... "
" ... Maybe that's why in England you have better horses, and in Scotland we have better men ... "
— James Boswell responding to Samuel Johnson
("In England we wouldn't think of eating oats. We only feed them to horses.")
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" ... Talk that does not end in any kind of action is better suppressed altogether ... "
" ... Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community ... "
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" ... A good gulp of whisky at bedtime – it’s not scientific but it helps ... "
" ... I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair ... "
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" ... A ripple of laughter is worth an ocean of tears. To laugh is to be free of worry ... "
" ... It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important ... "
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" ... Good lies need a leavening of truth to make them palatable ... "
" ... Golf is a thoroughly national game; it is as Scotch as haggis, cockie-leekie, high cheek-bones or rowanberry jam ... "
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" ... History is written from then to now but understood back to front ... "
" ... Growing old is great. It’s like getting drunk. Everyone around you gets better-looking ... "
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" ... One sometimes finds what one is not looking for ... "
" ... I have found you an argument; I am not obliged to find you an understanding ... "
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" ... We think the world is ours for ever, but we are little more than squatters ... "
" ... A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless ... "
— James VI King of Scots (on Tobacco)
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" ... Some folks are wise and some are otherwise ... "
" ... It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable in restrospect ... "
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" ... Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations ... "
" ... Who thinks the law has anything to do with justice? It’s what we have because we can’t have justice ... "
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" ... The Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not be found out ... "
" ... For God's sake give me the young man who has brains enough to make a fool of himself ... "
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" ... I must follow them. I am their leader ... "
" ... None can destroy Scotland, save Scotland's self ... "
— Lord Belhaven, opposing the union of 1707
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" ... Avarice, the spur of industry ... "
" ... No enemy is half so fatal as a friend estranged ... "
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" ... Instinct is untaught ability ... "
" ... The great and good do not die even in this world. Enbalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad ... "
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" ... Authors and captured criminals are the only people free from routine ... "
" ... The world is neither Scottish, English, nor Irish, neither French, Dutch, nor Chinese, but human ... "
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" ... All government is a monopoly of violence ... "
" ... In order to enjoy leisure, it is absolutely necessary it should be preceded by occupation ... "
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" ... One can love a country until it hurts ... "
" ... I thought he was a young man of promise, but I see he was a young man of promises ... "
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" ... Burns of all poets is the most a Man ... "
" ... No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men ... "
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" ... No man is useless while he has a friend ... "
" ... Scottish separation is part of England's imperial disintegration ... "
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" ... Nae man can tether time nor tide ... "
" ... In all ages of the world, priests have been the enemies of liberty ... "
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" ... Facts are stubborn things ... "
" ... History does not repeat itself. Historians repeat each other ... "
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" ... Men are immortal till their work is done ... "
" ... America would have been a poor show had it not been for the Scots ... "
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" ... Every man has a sane spot somewhere ... "
" ... You cannot force ideas. Successful ideas are the result of slow growth ... "
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" ... I think for my part one half of the nation is mad – and the other not very sound ... "
" ... Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice ... "
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" ... I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom ... "
" ... Kilt, n. - a costume sometimes worn by Scotsmen in America and Americans in Scotland ... "
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" ... Biography should be written by an acute enemy ... "
" ... We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic ... "
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" ... Books are a finer world within the world ... "
" ... All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education ... "
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" ... The Scots are steadfast - not their clime ... "
" ... We do have the greatest fans in the world but I’ve never seen a fan score a goal ... "
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" ... History, a distillation of Rumour ... "
" ... Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary ... "
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" ... Biography: One of the new terrors of death ... "
" ... It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding ... "
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" ... Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly ... "
" ... The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it ... "
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" ... The secret of long life is always be doing something you enjoy ... "
— Tom Weir
" ... War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle ... "
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" ... Of all vices, drinking is the most incompatible with greatness ... "
" ... The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn ... "
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" ... Come along inside. We'll see if tea and buns can make the world a better place ... "
" ... All speech, written or spoken, is a dead language, until it finds a willing and prepared hearer ... "
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" ... It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics ... "
" ... We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once ... "
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" ... I fear I have nothing original in me excepting original sin ... "
" ... Life is a waste of time. Time is a waste of life. Get wasted all the time and you'll have the time of your life ... "
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" ... No man can become rich without himself enriching others ... "
" ... The old cathedrals are good, but the great blue dome that hangs over everything is better ... "
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" ... Teach a parrot the terms "supply and demand" and you've got an economist ... "
" ... A man’s real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor ... "
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" ... Politically correct is the language of cowardice ... "
" ... It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine ... "
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" ... A rat race is for rats. We’re not rats ... "
" ... I believe that every Scotsman should be a Scottish Nationalist ... "
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" ... Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes ... "
" ... I am not here, then, as the accused; I am here as the accuser of capitalism dripping with blood from head to foot ... "
— John Maclean from his famous "speech from the dock"
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" ... Well, we say yes and we are the people ... "
" ... Socialism proposes to dethrone the brute-god Mammon and to lift humanity into its place ... "
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" ... He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts — for support rather than illumination ... "
" ... We come here with no peaceful intent, but ready for battle, determined to avenge our wrongs and set our country free.
Let your masters come and attack us: we are ready to meet them beard to beard ... "
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" ... Celtic jerseys are not for second best, They don't shrink to fit inferior players ... "
" ... In every place, where there is any thing worthy of observation, there should be a short printed directory for strangers ... "
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" ... Freedom is best, I tell thee true, of all things to be won ... "
" ... The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots as a joke, but the Scots haven't seen the joke yet ... "
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" ... History is the essence of innumerable biographies ... "
" ... for, as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself ... "
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" ... There are only two types of music: rock and roll ... "
" ... A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that Fortune's inequality exhibits under this sun ... "
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" ... Whaur's yer Wullie Shakespeare noo? ... "
—Anonymous
(Patriotic shout from an audience member at the 1st Edinburgh performance of the John Home tragedy Douglas)
" ... Law is the reflection of the spirit of a people, and so long as the Scots are conscious that they are a people, they must preserve their law ... "
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" ... He is an egregious dissembler and a great liar. Away with him, he is a greeting divil ... "
— Robert Blair (On Oliver Cromwell, to a fellow Covenanter)
" ... What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom ... "
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" ... Golf is an indispensable adjunct to high society ... "
" ... We are bought and sold for English gold. Such a parcel of rogues in a nation ... "
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" ... the inarticulate expression of the inequalities of life ... "
— Jimmy Boyle (Speaking of crime)
" ... The proletarian has no country; all are equally prisons to him alike ... "
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" ... His mind was a kind of extinct sulphur pit ... "
— Thomas Carlyle (Speaking of Napoleon III)
" ... Fire is the best of servants; but what a master! ... "