Robert Burns
Dare to be honest and fear no labor.Collection: Fear
The joy of my heart is to 'study men, their manners, and their ways,' and for this darling object I cheerfully sacrifice every other consideration.Collection: Men
Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn!
The wide world is all before us - but a world without a friend.
There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.
The snowdrop and primrose our woodlands adorn, and violets bathe in the wet o' the morn.
Suspense is worse than disappointment.
I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.
Suspicion is a heavy armor and with its weight it impedes more than it protects.
And there begins a lang digression about the lords o' the creation.
Firmness in enduring and exertion is a character I always wish to possess. I have always despised the whining yelp of complaint and cowardly resolve.
Let them cant about decorum, Who have characters to lose!
O thou great, unknown Power! Thou Almighty God, who hast lighted up reason in my breast and blessed me with immortality! I have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken me.
There is scarcely anything to which I am so feelingly alive as the honour and welfare of my country, and, as a poet, I have no higher enjoyment than singing her sons and daughters.
The appellation of a Scottish Bard is by far my highest pride; to continue to deserve it is my most exalted ambition.
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress; A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!
There is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of dissimulation and falsehood that I am surprised they can be used by anyone in so noble, so generous a passion as virtuous love.
His locked, lettered, braw brass collar, Shewed him the gentleman and scholar.
Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.
There is nothing in the whole frame of man which seems to me so unaccountable as that thing called conscience.
It is natural for a young fellow to like the acquaintance of females and customary for him to keep them company when occasion serves. Some one of them is more agreeable to him than the rest; there is something, he knows not what, pleases him, he knows not how, in her company. This I take to be what is called love with the greatest part of us.
I am very willing to admit that I have some poetical abilities, and as few - if any - writers, either moral or political, are intimately acquainted with the classes of mankind among whom I have chiefly mingled, I may have seen men and manners in a different phasis from what is common, which may assist originality of thought.
In my conscience, I believe that my heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified.
I foresee that poverty and obscurity probably await me, and I am in some measure prepared and daily preparing to meet them.
I have often thought that if a well-grounded affection be not really a part of virtue, it is something extremely akin to it.
Now's the day and now's the hour.Collection: Inspirational
Nae man can tether time or tide.Collection: Time
A women can make an average man great, and a great man average.Collection: Men
The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men, Gang aft a-gley, And leave us nought but grief and pain, For promised joy.Collection: Pain
While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, The fate of empires and the fall of kings; While quacks of State must each produce his plan, And even children lisp the Rights of Man; Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, The Rights of Woman merit some attention.Collection: Kings
Life is but a day at most.Collection: Life
My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart 's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer.Collection: Heart
Some hae meat and canna eat, And some wad eat that want it, But we hae meat and we can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit.Collection: Thanksgiving
But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, it's bloom is shed; Or, like the snow-fall in the river, A moment white, then melts forever.Collection: Flower
I love drinking now and then. It defecates the standing pool of thought. A man perpetually in the paroxysm and fears of inebriety is like a half-drowned stupid wretch condemned to labor unceasingly in water; but a now-and-then tribute to Bacchus is like the cold bath, bracing and invigorating.Collection: Stupid
An honest man here lies at rest, the friend of man the friend of truth the friend of age and guide of youth. Few hearts like his with virtue warmed, few heads with knowledge so informed. If there's another world, he lives in bliss. If there is none, he made the best of this.Collection: Lying
I look on the opposite sex with something like the admiration with which I regard the starry sky on a frosty December night. I admire the beauty of the Creator's workmanship, I am charmed with the wild but graceful eccentricity of the motions, and then I wish both of them goodnight.Collection: Sex
My love is like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June: My love is like the melody That's sweetly played in tune. How fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in love am I; And I will love thee still, my dear, Till all the seas gang dry. Till all the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt with the sun; I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands of life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only love. And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my love, Though it were ten thousand mile.Collection: Running
The heart that is generous and kind most resembles God.Collection: Faith
The best laid plans take 40 years to complete.Collection: Years
Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot and days of auld lang syne? For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne, we'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.Collection: New Year
How wretched is the person who hangs on by the favors of the powerful.Collection: Powerful
Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!Collection: Learning
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing.Collection: Inspirational
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord alright!Collection: Military
That hour o' night's black arch the keystane.Collection: Night