I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.

Burns' Hog-Weighing Method: (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse. (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank. (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly balanced. (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks.

Gin a body meet a body Coming thro' the rye, Gin a body kiss a body— Need a body cry?

The snowdrop and primrose our woodlands adorn, and violets bathe in the wet o' the morn.

Pleasures are like poppies spread: You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed.

I waive the quantum o' the sin, The hazard of concealing; But, och! it hardens a' within, And petrifies the feeling!

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.