Robert Burns Quotes

183 Sourced Quotes

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
If there 's a hole in a' your coats, I rede ye tent it; A chiel 's amang ye takin' notes, And, faith, he 'll prent it.

Robert Burns
Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs Were twisted graceful', round her brows; I took her for some Scottish Muse, By that same token; And come to stop those reckless vows, Would soon be broken.

Robert Burns
Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green; The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar Twin'd am'rous round the raptur'd scene.

Robert Burns
The trout in yonder wimpling burn - That glides, a silver dart, - And, safe beneath the shady thorn, - Defies the anglers art...

Robert Burns
Why has a religious turn of mind always a tendency to narrow and harden the heart?

Robert Burns
The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men, for a' that!

Robert Burns
For gold the merchant ploughs the main,
The farmer ploughs the manor.

Robert Burns
Ambition is a meteor-gleam; Fame a restless airy dream; Pleasures, insects on the wing Round Peace, th' tend rest flow'r of spring.

Robert Burns
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
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
O saw ye bonnie Lesley,
As she gaed o'er the border?
She's gane, like Alexander,
To spread her conquests farther.

Robert Burns
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
And my fause luver stole my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi' me.

Robert Burns
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surprised them all.

Robert Burns
The heart benevolent and kind
The most resembles God.

Robert Burns
The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride.

Robert Burns
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu'd the gowans fine.

Robert Burns
O, gie me the lass that has acres o' charms,
O, gie me the lass wi' the weel-stockit farms.

Robert Burns
I'm truly sorry Man's dominion
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle,
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!

Robert Burns
O Death! the poor man's dearest friend,
The kindest and the best!

Robert Burns
John Barleycorn was a hero bold, Of noble enterprise, For if you do but taste his blood, 'Twill make your courage rise, Twill make a man forget his wo; 'Twill heighten all his joy.

Robert Burns
Oh, stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay, Nor quit for me the trembling spray, A hapless lover courts thy lay, Thy soothing, fond complaining.

Robert Burns
Even every ray of hope destroyed and not a wish to gild the gloom.

Robert Burns
And let us mind, faint heart ne'er wan A lady fair. Wha does the utmost that he can Will whyles do mair.

Robert Burns
The lightly-jumping, glowrin' trouts, That thro' my waters play...

Robert Burns
What's a' your jargon o' your schools, Your Latin names for horns and stools; If honest nature made you fools.

Robert Burns
Such is the fate of simple Bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd

Robert Burns
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
But of all Nonsense, Religious Nonsense is the most nonsensical; so enough, & more than enough of it - Only, by the bye, will you, or can you tell me, my dear Cunningham, why a religioso turn of mind has always a tendency to narrow and illiberalise the heart?

Robert Burns