Robert Burns Quotes

Nature's law, That man was made to mourn. Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn! O Death, the poor man's dearest friend, The kindest and the best!

An atheist's laugh 's a poor exchange For Deity offended!

To step aside is human.

Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.

Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die.

And like a passing thought, she fled In light away.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane In proving foresight may be vain The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain For promis'd joy!

Misled by fancy's meteor ray, By passion driven; But yet the light that led astray Was light from heaven.

Morality, thou deadly bane, Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain! Vain is his hope, whose stay an' trust is In moral mercy, truth, and justice!

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.

Dare to be honest and fear no labor. ... Opera is where a man gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.

The upright, honest-hearted man Who strives to do the best he can, Need never fear the church's ban Or hell's damnation.

When matters are desperate we must put on a desperate face.

Ambition is a meteor-gleam; Fame a restless airy dream; Pleasures, insects on the wing Round Peace, th' tend rest flow'r of spring.

Here's to us, who's like us Damn few, and they're all dead.

God help the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and insists on lighting up the rays of science in a fellow's head whose skull is impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive fracture with a cudgel.

Pharmaceutical projects are like fresh fruit - they depreciate if they are not tended to, and they do poorly if sitting on the shelf with long periods of inactivity.

How wretched is the person who hangs on by the favors of the powerful.

It 's guid to be merry and wise, It 's guid to be honest and true, It 's guid to support Caledonia's cause, And bide by the buff and the blue.

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.

Love's first snow-drop, virgin kiss.

I'm truly sorry man's dominion has broken Nature's social union.

Ye Hypocrites, are these your pranks To murder men and gie God thanks Desist for shame, proceed no further God won't accept your thanks for murder.

Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet To think how monie counsels sweet, How monie lengthened sage advices, The husband frae the wife despises.

Prudent, cautious self-control is wisdom's root.

A eunuch is a man who has had his work cut out for him.

Auld Nature swears the lovely dears Her noblest work she classes, O; Her 'prentice han' she tried on man, And then she made the lasses, O!

Mankind is a science that defies definitions.

But of all Nonsense, Religious Nonsense is the most nonsensical; so enough, & more than enough of it - Only, by the bye, will you, or can you tell me, my dear Cunningham, why a religioso turn of mind has always a tendency to narrow and illiberalise the heart?

There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.

My heart 's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart 's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer.

Good Lord, what is man! for as simple he looks, Do but try to develop his books and his crooks, With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil, All in all, he's a problem must puzzle the devil.

Not the bee upon the blossom, In the pride o' sunny noon; Not the little sporting fairy, All beneath the simmer moon; Not the poet, in the moment Fancy lightens in his e'e, Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture, That thy presence gi'es to me.

If there's another world, he lives in bliss; if there is none, he made the best of this.

'T is sweeter for thee despairing Than aught in the world beside,-Jessy!

In durance vile 1here must I wake and weep, And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep.

Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase 'Auld Lang Syne' exceedingly expressive? I shall give you the verses on the other sheet. The words of 'Auld Lang Syne' are good, but the music is an old air, the rudiments of the modern tune of that name. ... Dare to be honest and fear no labor. ... Opera is where a man gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings. ... Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure thrill the deepest notes of woe. ... Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.

By Oppression's woes and pains! By your sons in servile chains! We will drain our dearest veins, But they shall be free! Lay the proud usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty's in every blow! Let us do or die!

Now a' is done that men can do, And a' is done in vain.

My heart is sair-I dare na tell, My heart is sair for Somebody.

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

Dare to be honest and fear no labor.

God knows, I'm not the thing I should be, Nor am I even the thing I could be, But twenty times I rather would be An atheist clean, Than under gospel colours hid be Just for a screen.

And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway, And mind your duty, duly, morn and night; Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, Implore His counsel and assisting might: They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright.

Your lines, I maintain it, are poetry, and good poetry.... Friendship... had I been so blest as to have met with you in time, might have led me - God of love only knows where.

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.

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

Great for good, or great for evil.