Robert Burns Quotes & Sayings

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

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

#3. 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.

Robert Burns

#4. Their sighing, canting, grace-proud faces, their three-mile prayers, and half-mile graces.

Robert Burns

#5. If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
'T is when a youthful, loving, modest pair
In other's arms breathe out the tender tale

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#7. Life is but a day at most.

Robert Burns

#8. 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.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#10. Even thou who mournst the daisies fate, that fate is thine.

Robert Burns

#11. They never sought in vain that sought the Lord alright!

Robert Burns

#12. Then gently scan your brother
man,
still gentler sister woman, though they may gang
a kennin wrang, to step aside is human

Robert Burns

#13. Even thou who mournst the daisy's fate, that fate is thine.

Robert Burns

#14. The great Creator to revere
Must sure become the creature;
But still the preaching cant forbear,
And ev'n the rigid feature:
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range
Be complaisance extended;An atheist laugh's a poor exchange
For deity offended.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#16. Dare to be honest and fear no labor.

Robert Burns

#17. Morality, thou deadly bane,Thy tens o' thousands thou has slain!

Robert Burns

#18. As Tammie glow'red, amazed and curious, The mirth and fun grew fast and furious.

Robert Burns

#19. 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!

Robert Burns

#20. Anticipation forward points the view.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#22. Some wee short hour ayont the twal.

Robert Burns

#23. 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.

Robert Burns

#24. The best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley.

Robert Burns

#25. What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#27. At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddling, stacher thro'
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#29. I found that old Solomon proved it fair,
That a big-belly'd bottle's a cure for all care.

Robert Burns

#30. Oh my luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
Oh my luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.

Robert Burns

#31. I am little acquainted with politeness, but I know a good deal of benevolence of temper and goodness of heart.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#34. A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest!

Robert Burns

#35. Even every ray of hope destroyed and not a wish to gild the gloom.

Robert Burns

#36. Some rhyme a neebor's name to lash;
Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu' cash;
Some rhyme to court the countra clash,
An' raise a din;
For me, an aim I never fash;
I rhyme for fun.

Robert Burns

#37. 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.

Robert Burns

#38. Such is the fate of simple Bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd

Robert Burns

#39. Beauty's of a fading nature. Has a season and is gone!

Robert Burns

#40. Suspense is worse than disappointment.

Robert Burns

#41. Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met -- or never parted --
we had ne'er been broken-hearted

Robert Burns

#42. 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.

Robert Burns

#43. The rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that.

Robert Burns

#44. I'll be merry and free, I'll be sad for nae-body; If nae-body cares for me, I'll care for nae-body.

Robert Burns

#45. 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.

Robert Burns

#46. Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#48. 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!

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#52. Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme These woes of mine fulfil, Here firm I rest; they must be best, Because they are Thy will! Then all I want - O do Thou grant This one request of mine! - Since to enjoy Thou dost deny, Assist me to resign.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#54. On Earth, Discord! A gloomy Heaven above, opening her jealous gates to the nineteen thousandth part of the tithe of mankind! And below, an inescapable & inexorable Hell, expanding its leviathan jaws for the vast residue of Mortals!

Robert Burns

#55. 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.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#57. It's hardly in a body's pow'r,To keep, at times, frae being sour.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#59. All-cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn,
Led yellow Autumn, wreath'd with nodding corn.
[Brigs of Ayr]

Robert Burns

#60. The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men, for a' that!

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#63. Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victory! Now 's the day and now 's the hour; See the front o' battle lour.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#66. Suspense is worst than disappointment.

Robert Burns

#67. Unmatch'd at the bottle, unconquer'd in war, He drank his poor god-ship as deep as the sea; No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he.

Robert Burns

#68. Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!

Robert Burns

#69. 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.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#71. All my fears and cares are of this world; if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear from it.

Robert Burns

#72. But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love forever.

Robert Burns

#73. 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!

Robert Burns

#74. 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.

Robert Burns

#75. Humid seal of soft affections,
Tend'rest pledge of future bliss,
Dearest tie of young connections,
Love's first snow-drop, virgin kiss.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#77. Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.

Robert Burns

#78. The heart that is generous and kind most resembles God.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#80. But facts are chiels that winna ding,
An' downa be disputed.

Robert Burns

#81. To step aside is human.

Robert Burns

#82. 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.

Robert Burns

#83. 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!

Robert Burns

#84. For thus the royal mandate ran, When first the human race began, "The social, friendly honest man, Whate'er he be, Tis he fulfils great Nature's plan, And none but he!"

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#86. O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#89. [Scottish songs] are, I own, frequently wild, & unreduceable to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect.

Robert Burns

#90. 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.

Robert Burns

#91. But deep this truth impress'd my mind:
Thro' all His works abroad,
The heart benevolent and kind
The most resembles God.

Robert Burns

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

Robert Burns

#93. A mind that is conscious of its integrity scorns to say more than it means to perform.

Robert Burns

#94. The best laid plans take 40 years to complete.

Robert Burns

#95. 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!

Robert Burns