Robert Burns Quotes

a Scottish poet

How pathetic the jester is, on the king's throne,<br />How stupid the people who allowed it. Dweller in yon dungeon dark, Hangman of creation, mark! Who in widow weeds appears, Laden with unhonoured years, Noosing with care a bursting purse, Baited with many a deadly curse? The great Creator to revere<br />Must sure become the creature;<br />But still the preaching cant forbear,<br />And ev'n the rigid feature:<br />Yet ne'er with wits profane to range<br />Be complaisance extended;An atheist laugh's a poor exchange<br />For deity offended. Ambition is a meteor-gleam; Fame a restless airy dream; Pleasures, insects on the wing Round Peace, th' tend rest flow'r of spring. The upright, honest-hearted man Who strives to do the best he can, Need never fear the church's ban Or hell's damnation. A eunuch is a man who has had his work cut out for him. Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure Thrill the deepest notes of woe. Pleasures are like poppies spread: You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed. Morality, thou deadly bane, Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain! Vain is his hope, whose stay an' trust is In moral mercy, truth, and justice! My heart is sair-I dare na tell, My heart is sair for Somebody. A women can make an average man great, and a great man average. 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. While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, The fate of empires and the fall of kings; While quacks of State must each produce his plan, And even children lisp the Rights of Man; Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, The Rights of Woman merit some attention. Burns' Hog-Weighing Method: (1) Get a perfectly symmetrical plank and balance it across a sawhorse. (2) Put the hog on one end of the plank. (3) Pile rocks on the other end until the plank is again perfectly balanced. (4) Carefully guess the weight of the rocks. 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. Misled by fancy's meteor ray, By passion driven; But yet the light that led astray Was light from heaven. And like a passing thought, she fled In light away. All my fears and cares are of this world; if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear from it. 'T is sweeter for thee despairing Than aught in the world beside,-Jessy! Now a' is done that men can do, And a' is done in vain. Here's to us, who's like us Damn few, and they're all dead. Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white-then melts for ever . . . God knows, I'm not the thing I should be, Nor am I even the thing I could be, But twenty times I rather would be An atheist clean, Than under gospel colours hid be Just for a screen. An honest man here lies at rest, the friend of man the friend of truth the friend of age and guide of youth. Few hearts like his with virtue warmed, few heads with knowledge so informed. If there's another world, he lives in bliss. If there is none, he made the best of this. I look on the opposite sex with something like the admiration with which I regard the starry sky on a frosty December night. I admire the beauty of the Creator's workmanship, I am charmed with the wild but graceful eccentricity of the motions, and then I wish both of them goodnight. Good Lord, what is man! for as simple he looks, Do but try to develop his books and his crooks, With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil, All in all, he's a problem must puzzle the devil. The fear o' hell's a hangman's whip To haud the wretch in order; But where ye feel your honour grip, Let that aye be your border. But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, it's bloom is shed; Or, like the snow-fall in the river, A moment white, then melts forever.

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