All Quotes

"Where sits our sulky, sullen dame, Gathering her brows like gathering storm, Nursing her wrath to keep it warm."

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

"The landlady and Tam grew gracious Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious."

"The landlord's laugh was ready chorus."

"His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony: Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither— They had been fou for weeks thegither."

"Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious, O'er a' the ills o' life victorious."

"But pleasures are like poppies spread— You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river— A moment white—then melts forever."

"Nae man can tether time or tide."

"That hour, o' night's black arch the keystane."

"Inspiring bold John Barleycorn! What dangers thou canst make us scorn! Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil; Wi' usquabae, we'll face the devil!"

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

"Her cutty sark, o' Paisley harn, That while a lassie she had worn, In longitude tho' sorely scanty, It was her best, and she was vauntie."

"Tam tint his reason a' thegither, And roars out — "Weel done, Cutty-sark!""

"Ah, Tam! Ah! Tam! Thou'll get thy fairin! In hell they'll roast you like a herrin!"

"For a' that, and a' that An' twice as muckle 's a' that, I've lost but ane, I've twa behin', I've wife eneugh for a' that."

"I once was a maid, tho' I cannot tell when, And still my delight is in proper young men."

"Partly wi' o'ercome sae sair, And partly she was drunk."

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

"Life is all a , We regard not how it goes; Let them cant about , Who have characters to lose."

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

"If there's another world, he lives in bliss; If there is none, he made the best of this."

"In durance vile here must I wake and weep, And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep."

"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."

"There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing."

"Beauty's of a fading nature Has a season and is gone!"

"The white moon is setting behind the white wave, And Time is setting with me, O!"

"Burns stood, as regarded the old and the new world of poetry, both in Scotland and in England, at the parting of the ways. He was at once the climax of the old and the harbinger of the new. He brought to perfection what many of his Scottish predecessors and models had practised with much charm and ability. In the vernacular Scottish song, in the satire, in the familiar Epistle, in dramatic narrative, he rose to a height which no successor could depose him. He was the greatest of Scottish poets. ... More than any one else, more than Cowper or Wordsworth, did he serve to break up the frost that seemed to be settling upon the lyric flow in England at the end of the last century. The renaissance of poetry early in this century owed much to him, and those who owed to poetry no small part of their higher education would not grudge him their thoughtful gratitude."

"Their great national poet spoke to Scotland in her language, that he read the hearts of her people, and gave eloquent utterance to their dumb thoughts. In his scathing words he was able to condemn everything that was ignoble, selfish, and mean; and he stimulated everything that was noblest and best in the hearts of the people. He gave lessons of the loftiest patriotism and of aspirations for political freedom, while at the same time he maintained a steadfast devotion to the cause of everything that savoured of uncompromising hatred of oppression and wrong."

"Now, Robert Burns was a great man and a great poet, and the influence of his truly tremendous satiric and lyrical genius has been one of the great factors in the disintegration of Scottish superstition."

"Scottish virtues were due...to Wallace, who started the idea of independence, to John Knox for the ineradicable reverence for the Kirk, and to Robert Burns for that feeling of brotherhood and sense of humanity that got below all differences of rank."

"There was neither fortune nor title in the man's pedigree, and yet he sprang from the salt of the earth, for he came from that lowland Scottish peasant stock which was one of the finest stocks that the world could show, if one might judge from its results. The limitations of these men might be marked, but there sprang from them every now and again one who could voice the feelings of his fellow men, and such a man was Robert Burns."

"He has given voice to all the experiences of common life; he has endeared the farm-house and cottage, patches and poverty, beans and barley; ale, the poor man's wine; hardship, the fear of debt, the dear society of weans and wife, of brothers and sisters, proud of each other, knowing so few, and finding amends for want and obscurity in books and thought. ... And, as he was thus the poet of the poor, anxious, cheerful, working humanity, so had he the language of low life. He grew up in a rural district, speaking a patois unintelligible to all but natives, and he has made that Lowland Scotch a Doric dialect of fame. It is the only example in history of a language made classic by the genius of a single man."

"He speaks for a community he is rooted in, as Chaucer and Langland did. He is a lyrical poet of simple tenderness; but he is also a comic and satirical poet with a hard and definite moral vision, a very sharp eye indeed for permanent kinds of human folly, and a glancing and flickering wit... He is also a poet of the people as no modern English poet worth anything has been. He thus fills a gap for the English reader; and if young English poets, ingenious but academic, were to read him to-day they might learn to double their strength by touching the earth."

"I also liked the Romantic poets. Wordsworth, Keats, Burns and Blake were some of my favourites. There was something about their rebellious spirit against the evils of industrialization that moved me. Of course now, some of their pessimism, mysticism and limited critical realist visions make me quite uncomfortable."

"He was a leading Liberal, certainly. It had been said by a great statesman in the old days that he did not care who made the laws so long as he could make the ballads. In the last century the accents of freedom were heard in Scotland in the ballads of Burns. "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled" and "A man's a man for a' that" were regarded as almost revolutionary in the days when he wrote."

"The economic truths of Socialism, its industrialism, and its sociology, must remain the vainest of vain dreamings unless we preserve among the people the political frame of mind which can appreciate democratic liberty and worth. When "a man's a man for a' that" is recited without making the blood tingle, the man has ceased to be."

"The influence of Burns on the imaginative literature of Scotland has been deep and abiding. Many Scotsmen have been so touched, moved, and stirred by his writings, as to arouse an irrepressible feeling within them to compose verse themselves; and to-day there are many in the humble walks of life who can write passable and even animated verse and song, and appreciate the highest works of the imaginative and elaborate faculties of the race. Burns has exercised much influence over the mind of the Scottish people by removing prejudice and superstition, fostering liberty and independence of spirit, and greater freedom of thought."

"Burns had intellectual breadth and religious susceptibility enough to appropriate what was best in the two phases of the religious thought of his time. Thus it happened that while the average Moderate looked upon Calvinism as represented by the Covenanters as a detestable fanaticism, an enemy to the amenities of social life, Burns paid tribute to their magnificent stand for liberty... Burns, who had Covenanting blood in his veins, had no need to go to Rousseau for his democratic fervour. His "A man's a man for a' that" owes infinitely more to Samuel Rutherford than to Rousseau."

"The harvest of a quiet eye, That broods and sleeps on his own heart."

"Happier of happy though I be, like them I cannot take possession of the sky, Mount with a thoughtless impulse, and wheel there One of a mighty multitude whose way Is a perpetual harmony and dance Magnificent."

"Is there not An art, a music, and a stream of words That shalt be life, the acknowledged voice of life?"

"Not Chaos, not The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out By help of dreams — can breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man."

"Sweet Mercy! to the gates of Heaven This minstrel lead, his sins forgiven; The rueful conflict, the heart riven With vain endeavour, And memory of earth's bitter leaven Effaced forever."

"And stepping westward seemed to be A kind of heavenly destiny."

"I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more."

"A famous man is Robin Hood, The English ballad-singer's joy."

"Yet was Rob Roy as wise as brave; Forgive me if the phrase be strong;— A Poet worthy of Rob Roy Must scorn a timid song."

"Burn all the statutes and their shelves: They stir us up against our kind; And worse, against ourselves."

"The good old rule Sufficeth them, the simple plan, That they should take, who have the power, And they should keep who can."

"The Eagle, he was lord above, And Rob was lord below."