Robert Burns Quotes - Page 4

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.

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

Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white-then melts for ever . . .

The golden hours on angel wings Flew o'er me and my dearie, For dear to me as light and life Was my sweet Highland Mary.

Some books are lies frae end to end.

To step aside is human.

I have a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer resigns a commission.

O Life! thou art a galling load, Along a rough, a weary road, To wretches such as I!

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!

To make a happy fireside clime To weans and wife, That's the true pathos and sublime Of human life.

Be Briton still to Britain true, Among oursel's united; For never but by British hands Maun British wrangs be righted.

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!

Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new.

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.

See Social-life and Glee sit down, All joyous and unthinking, Till, quite transmugrified, they're grown Debauchery and Drinking

Again rejoicing Nature sees Her robe assume its vernal hues Her leafy locks wave in the breeze, All freshly steep'd in the morning dews.

My Son, these maxims make a rule An lump them ay thegither: The Rigid Righteous is a fool, The Rigid Wise anither.

A man's a man for a' that. . . . . A prince can mak a belted knight, A marquis, duke, and a' that; But an honest man's aboon his might, Guid faith he mauna fa' that! . . . Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that, That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree and a' that. For a' that, and a' that, It's comin' yet, for a' that, When man to man, the world o'er, Shall brithers be for a' that.

To make three guineas do the work of five.

Why has a religious turn of mind always a tendency to narrow and harden the heart?

Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure Thrill the deepest notes of woe.

Suspense is worse than disappointment.

When Nature her great masterpiece designed,And framed her last, best work, the human mind,Her eye intent on all the wondrous plan,She formed of various stuff the various Man.

And let us mind, faint heart ne'er wan A lady fair. Wha does the utmost that he can Will whyles do mair.