Explore Quotes by Robert Burns

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!

O, my luve is like a red, red rose.

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