Scottish Poet Quotes

James Thomson (poet)

Muriel Spark

Joanna Baillie

William Sharp

Gavin Douglas

James Thomson (B.V.)

John Davidson

Louers be war and tak gude heid about Quhome that ye lufe, for quhome ye suffer paine. I lat yow wit, thair is richt few thairout Quhome ye may traist to haue trew lufe agane.

Robert Henryson

When gloaming treads the heels of day
And birds sit cowering on the spray,
Along the flowery hedge I stray,
To meet mine ain dear somebody.

Robert Tannahill

How still the morning of the hallow'd day! Mute is the voice of rural labour, hush'd The ploughboy's whistle, and the milkmaid's song.

Wee Willie Winkie rins through the town,
Up stairs and doon stairs in his nicht-gown,
Tirling at the window, crying at the lock,
"Are the weans in their bed, for it's now ten o'clock?"

A poem needs nervous tension, like an arrow needs a bowstring.

Quhen Alysander oure kyng wes dede,
That Scotland led in luve and le,
Away wes sons of ale and brede,
Of wyne and wax, of gamyn and gle;
Oure gold wes changyd into lede,
Cryst, borne into virgynyte,
Succour Scotland, and remede,
That stad is in perplexyte.

Andrew of Wyntoun

The Lawyers may revere that tree
Where thieves so oft have swung,
Since, by the Law's most wise decree,
Her thieves are never hung.

Robert Fergusson

"Mortality", in Songs of Israel (1824). Abraham Lincoln was fond of repeating these lines.

It is richt facil and eith gait, I the tell,
Forto discend and pas on down to hell:
The blak gettis of Pluto, and that dirk way,
Standis evir oppin and patent nycht and day;
Bot tharfra to return agane on hyght,
And heir abufe recovir this aris licht,
That is difficil wark, thar lawbour lyis.

I wouldn't thank you for a Valentine
I won't wake up early wondering if the postman's been.
Should 10 red-padded satin hearts arrive with sticky sickly saccharine
Sentiments in very vulgar verses I wouldn't wonder if you meant them.

Now spring returns; but not to me returns
The vernal joy my better years have known;
Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns,
And all the joys of life with health have flown.

Destiny can sometimes be history coming back to bite you in the arse.

Imagine your shadow burning off the page / As the dear world and the dead word disengage

It is so seldom that a young fellow has any inclination for the company of an old man...

My poems should be Clyde-built, crude and sure,
With images of those dole-deployed
To honour the indomitable Reds,
Clydesiders of slant steel and angled cranes;
A poetry of nuts and bolts, born, bred,
Embattled by the Clyde, tight and impure.

Pass the tambourine, let me bash out the praises
to the Lord God of movement, to Absolute
non-friction, flight, and the scary side:
death by avalanche, birth by failed contraception.

"Who affirms that crystals are alive?" I affirm it, let who will deny: Crystals are engendered, wax and thrive, Wane and wither; I have seen them die.

Storys to rede ar delitabill,
Suppos that thai be nocht bot fabill.

Yet why evoke the spectres of black night
To blot the sunshine of exultant years?

James Thomson (B.V.)

On ilk beugh till embrace Writtin in a bill was O Dowglass, O Dowglass Tender and trewe!

Richard Holland

In spite of all their kind some elements of worth
With difficulty persist here and there on earth.

Hugh MacDiarmid

Of lunacy,
Innumerous were the causes; humbled pride,
Ambition disappointed, riches lost,
And bodily disease, and sorrow, oft
By man inflicted on his brother man;
Sorrow, that, made the reason drunk, and yet
Left much untasted. So the cup was fill'd.

The sparkle and morning-freshness of the shop, and the butter-conjuring girl, formed a mind-picture which accompanied the whole of my youth.(about the Buttercup Dairy)

We are better deceived by having some truth told us than none.

Charlotte Lennox

By the blended power Of gravitation and projection, saw The whole in silent harmony revolve. And ruled unerring by that single power Which draws the stone projected to the ground.

James Thomson (poet)