Loch Lomond Quotes

“Fell opportunity that has so often turned saints into sinners could have had no place upon the rocky islet in the lake. The voices of the sisters singing in the choir must have been scarce distinguishable from the lapping of the wavelets on the beach, or blending with them, made up a harmony, as if nature and man were joining in a pantheistic hymn. Nuns may have lived upon the Island with, or without vocation, have eaten out their hearts with longing for their lost world, or, like the Saint of Avila, in mystic ecstasy have striven to be one with the celestial spouse. All this may well have been, but the dim sisterhood has left no record of its passage upon earth, except the name Inch Cailleach, beautiful in its liquid likeness to the sound of the murmuring waves, and the wind sighing in the brackens and the bents.”
― R.B. Cunninghame Graham, The Complete Scottish Sketches of R.B. Cunninghame Graham: 'A Careless Enchantment'

“Cashel has been here before. Once part of the Rowardennan Estate, it was purchased by the National Land Fund for public benefit and passed to the Forestry Commission to manage before being sold by the Thatcher government. The cycle is now being repeated: private, public, private, public, private. What is land for?

The Cashel Trustees are now proposing to retain a core woodland are but have not said who or what the land is for. How about using the land to demonstrate what support is needed from government if native woodland is to deliver public benefit?”
― Nick Kempe, Reforesting Scotland 72: Autumn/Winter 2025