The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
gang aft a-gley.
—Robert Burns
Though losses and crosses be lessons right severe, there’s wit there ye’ll get there, ye’ll find no other where.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Adversity
The heart benevolent and kind the most resembles God.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Kindness
Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Criticism, Critics
I pick my favorite quotation and store them in my mind as ready armor, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Quotations
Prudent, cautious self-control, is wisdom’s root.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Self-Control, Control
Whatever mitigates the woes or increases the happiness of others-this is my criterion of goodness. And whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it-this is my measure of iniquity.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Goodness
I want someone to laugh with me, someone to be grave with me, someone to please me and help my discrimination with his or her own remark, and at times, no doubt, to admire my acuteness and penetration.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Laughter
Had we never lov’d sae kindly, Had we never lov’d sae blindly, Never met—or never parted—we had never been broken-hearted.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Sadness
There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Certainty, Uncertainty
And the spring comes slowly up this way.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Seasons
Suspicion is a heavy armor and with its weight it impedes more than it protects.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Doubt
Dearly bought the hidden treasure, finer feelings can bestow; chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure, thrill the deepest notes of woe.
—Robert Burns
Suspense is worst than disappointment.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Worry, Anxiety, Disappointment
Midnight—that hour of night’s black arch the keystone.
—Robert Burns
Firmness, both in suffering and exertion, is a character which I would wish to possess.—I have always despised the whining yelp of complaint, and the cowardly feeble resolve.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Complaining, Determination
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp; the man’s the gold for all that.
—Robert Burns
To make three guineas do the work of five.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Economy
When chill November’s surly blast make fields and forest bare.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Seasons
A mind conscious of integrity scorns to say more than it means to perform.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Promise
Let us do or die.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Action
Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us to see oursel’s as ithers see us.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Self-Discovery
Their sighing , canting , grace-proud faces, their three-mile prayers, and half-mile graces.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Grace
Man’s inhumanity to man, makes countless thousands mourn.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Cruelty
How wretched is the person who hangs on by the favors of the powerful.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Kindness
They never sought in vain, that sought the Lord aright.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Prayer
Some say kissing is a sin; but if it was na lawful, lawyers would na allow it; if it was na holy, ministers would na do it; if it was na modest, maidens would na take it; if it was na plenty, puir folk would na get it.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Kisses
The daisy’s for simplicity and unaffected air.
—Robert Burns
Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!
—Robert Burns
Topics: Silence
Go fetch to me a pint o wine, an fill it in a silver tassie.
—Robert Burns
Topics: Wine
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Walter Scott Scottish Novelist
- Robert Louis Stevenson Scottish Novelist
- Robert W. Service Scottish Poet
- Tobias Smollett Scottish Poet
- George MacDonald Scottish Poet, Novelist
- Hugh Blair Scottish Minister, Scholar
- Adam Smith Scottish Philosopher
- David Livingstone Scottish Missionary, Explorer
- Samuel Rutherford Scottish Presbyterian Theologian
- George Matheson Scottish Theologian
Leave a Reply