Robert Burns Quotes

In my conscience, I believe that my heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified.

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.

To see her is to love her,
And love but her forever;
For nature made her what she is,
And never made anither!

Suspense is worst than disappointment.

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.

Dare to be honest and fear no labor.

The wide world is all before us – but a world without a friend.

Life is but a day at most.

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

Suspicion is a heavy armor and with its weight it impedes more than it protects.

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.

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.

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.

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

The appellation of a Scottish Bard is by far my highest pride; to continue to deserve it is my most exalted ambition.

Oh would some power the gift give us,
to see ourselves as others see us!

There is nothing in the whole frame of man which seems to me so unaccountable as that thing called conscience.

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.

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

Suspense is worse than disappointment.

His locked, lettered, braw brass collar, Shewed him the gentleman and scholar.

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, Gang aft a-gley, And leave us nought but grief and pain, For promised joy.

A women can make an average man great, and a great man average.

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.

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.

God knows, I’m no the thing I should be, Nor am I even the thing I could be.

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

I foresee that poverty and obscurity probably await me, and I am in some measure prepared and daily preparing to meet them.

And there begins a lang digression about the lords o’ the creation.