Top 197 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Burns

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

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

I have often thought that if a well-grounded affection be not really a part of virtue, it is something extremely akin to it.

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.

There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.

Dare to be honest and fear no labor.

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.

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

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

Let them cant about decorum, Who have characters to lose!

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Suspense is worse than disappointment.

Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn!

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

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

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.

Affliction's sons are brothers in distress; A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!

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.

But to see her was to love her, Love but her, and love forever. Had we never lou'd sae kindly, Had we never lou'd sae blindly, Never met - or never parted - We had ne'er been broken hearted

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

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

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.

Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!

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

Mankind is a science that defies definitions.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Life is but a day at most.

Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire, That's a' the learning I desire.

Painters and poets have liberty to lie.

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

The heart that is generous and kind most resembles God.

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.

Nae man can tether time or tide.

My dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heav'n is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!

Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to min?

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.

Now's the day and now's the hour.

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.

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.

Look abroad through Nature's range, Nature's mighty law is change.

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

The best laid plans take 40 years to complete.

Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, An' fill it in a silver tassie.

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

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

The voice of Nature loudly cries,And many a message from the skies,That something in us never dies.