Walter Scott Quotes

What is strong and rigid is snapped and laid low. What is flexible and soft will always prevail.

You've got to bend with the wind or you're broken.

An oak and a reed were arguing about their strength. When a strong wind came up, the reed avoided being uprooted by bending and leaning with the gusts of wind. But the oak stood firm and was torn up by the roots.

The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.

Nature has a funny way of breaking what does not bend.

Better is to bow than break.

Steadfastness should net be confused with stubbornness.

Better bow than break.

In prosperity prepare for a change; in adversity hope for one

The only difference between a flexible person and one who is not is that the flexible person has to go farther to get the same stretch.

You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light.

[T]he values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs.

Obstinacy alone is not a virtue.

You know you can usually solve almost any problem, or you'll realize you can't, but usually you can solve almost any problem through some sort of trickery one way or another and get the shot to work, but you know when to give up.

We cannot wait for the storm to blow over; we must learn to work in the rain.

I thought of something my old coach at Staunton had often said: 'We win some, we lose some, and some get rained out; but we always suit up.'

The same sun that hardens the clay softens the wax.

The key to Zeppelin's longevity has been change.

Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it--turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself, so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.

The policy of adapting one's self to circumstances makes all ways smooth.

Life is an obstacle course. You succeed at one thing and then you move on to the next. When an obstacle is tough, you try harder. When an obstacle is insurmountable, you change course. But you never sit down and refuse to finish.

The policy that can strike only while the iron is hot will be overcome by that perseverance, which ... can make that iron hot by striking and he that can only rule the storm must yield to him who can both raise and rule it.

I am not bound over to swear allegiance to any master; where the storm drives me I turn in for shelter.

Failure doesn't mean anything, it just means changing paths.

Success nullifies. You then have to do it again, preferably differently.