James Hogg Quotes

#1. I never go but where I have some great purpose to serve," returned he, "either in the advancement of my own power and dominion or in thwarting my enemies.

James Hogg

#2. Will you no come back again?
Better loved you'll never be,
And will you no come back again?

James Hogg

#3. Musical cherub, soar, singing, away! Then, when the gloaming comes, Low in the heather blooms Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! Emblem of happiness, Blest is thy dwelling-place O, to abide in the desert with thee!

James Hogg

#4. An exaltation of spirit lifted me, as it were, far above the earth and the sinful creatures crawling on its surface; and I deemed myself as an eagle among the children of men, soaring on high, and looking down with pity and contempt on the grovelling creatures below.

James Hogg

#5. That undefined and mingled hum, Voice of the desert never dumb!

James Hogg

#6. It strikes me, my dear, that religious devotion would be somewhat out of place tonight

James Hogg

#7. Hold, Sir, I say! None of your profanity before me. If I do evil to anyone on such occasions, it is because he will have it so; therefore, the evil is not of my doing.

James Hogg

#8. Nothing in the world delights a truly religious people so much as consigning them to eternal damnation.

James Hogg

#9. What is the life of a man more than the life of a lamb, or any guiltless animal?

James Hogg

#10. O, love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness;
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his biziness!

James Hogg

#11. Having been bred amongst mountains I am always unhappy when in a flat country. Whenever the skirts of the horizon come on a level with myself I feel myself quite uneasy and generally have a headache.
(Letter to Sir Walter Scott, 25 July 1802)

James Hogg

#12. It would require more hands to manage a stock of sheep, gather them from the hills, force them into houses and folds, and drive them to markets, than the profits of the whole stock were capable of maintaining.

James Hogg

#13. ... he knew no other pleasure but what consisted in opposition.

James Hogg

#14. I anticipate with joy the approaching period when the stigmas of poverty and pride so liberally bestowed on the highlanders by our southern gentry will be as inapplicable to the inhabitants of that country as of any in the island.

James Hogg

#15. Man mind yoursel is the first commandment.

James Hogg

#16. The charge was left entirely to himself from midnight until the rising of the sun; and if all the shepherds in the Forest had been there to have assisted him, they could not have effected it with greater propriety.

James Hogg

#17. We are all subjected to two distinct natures in the same person. I myself have suffered grievously in that way.

James Hogg

#18. With regard to the work itself, I dare not venture a judgment, for I do not understand it.

James Hogg

#19. As soon as I arrived, I went to the head inn, held by Mr. Creighton, a silly, despicable man, but privileged in having an excellent wife.

James Hogg

#20. Oh, why should vows so fondly made, Be broken ere the morrow, To one who loves as never maid Loved in this world of sorrow?

James Hogg

#21. Without the shepherd's dog, the whole of the open mountainous land in Scotland would not be worth a sixpence.

James Hogg

#22. He had one uniform practice, and a very bad one it was, during the time of family worship, and just three or four seconds before the conclusion of the prayer, he started to his feet, and ran barking round the apartment like a crazed beast.

James Hogg

#23. If a body could just find oot the exac' proper proportion and quantity that ought to be drunk every day, and keep to that, I verily trow that he might leeve for ever, without dying at a', and that doctors and kirkyards would og oot o' fashion.

James Hogg

#24. The attendance of that brother was now become like the attendance of a demon on some devoted being that had sold himself to destruction

James Hogg

#25. He was scarcely then a year old, and knew so little of herding that he had never turned a sheep in his life; but as soon as he discovered it was his duty to do so I can never forget with what anxiety and eagerness he learned his different evolutions.

James Hogg

#26. A shepherd may be a very able, trusty, and good shepherd, without a sweetheart - better, perhaps, than with one. But what is he without his dog?

James Hogg

#27. Auld John may dee a beggar in a hay barn, or at the back of a dike, but he sall aye be master o' his ain thoughts an' gie them vent or no, as he likes

James Hogg

#28. The daisy is fair, the day-lily rare, The bud o' the rose as sweet as it's bonnie.

James Hogg