Robert Burns also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, the National Bard, Bard of Ayrshire and the Ploughman Poet and various other names and epithets, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. These Robert Burns quotes will motivate you.
Best Robert Burns Quotes
- “A woman can make an average man great, and a great man average.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Now’s the day and now’s the hour.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Oh would some power the gift give us,
to see ourselves as others see us!” ~ Robert Burns - “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.” ~ Robert Burns
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“There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Gie me ae spark o’ Nature’s fire,
That’s a’ the learning I desire.” ~ Robert Burns - “How wretched is the person who hangs on by the favors of the powerful.” ~ Robert Burns
- “I love drinking now and then. It defecates the standing pool of thought. A man perpetually in the paroxysm and fears of inebriety is like a half-drowned stupid wretch condemned to labor unceasingly in water; but a now-and-then tribute to Bacchus is like the cold bath, bracing and invigorating.” ~ Robert Burns
- “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.” ~ Robert Burns
- “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, Gang aft a-gley, And leave us nought but grief and pain, For promised joy.” ~ Robert Burns
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“Life is but a day at most.” ~ Robert Burns
- “To see her is to love her,
And love but her forever;
For nature made her what she is,
And never made anither!” ~ Robert Burns - “Dare to be honest and fear no labor.” ~ Robert Burns
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“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” ~ Robert Burns
- “My heart ‘s in the Highlands, my heart is not here; My heart ‘s in the Highlands a-chasing the deer.” ~ Robert Burns
- “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.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Nae man can tether time or tide.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Here’s to us, who’s like us Damn few, and they’re all dead.” ~ Robert Burns
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“Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing.” ~ Robert Burns
- “The heart that is generous and kind most resembles God.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Learn taciturnity and let that be your motto!” ~ Robert Burns
- “My love is like a red, red rose That’s newly sprung in June: My love is like the melody That’s sweetly played in tune. How fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in love am I; And I will love thee still, my dear, Till all the seas gang dry. Till all the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt with the sun; I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands of life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only love. And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my love, Though it were ten thousand mile.” ~ Robert Burns
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“She is a winsome wee thing, She is a handsome wee thing, She is a bonny wee thing, This sweet wee wife o’ mine.” ~ Robert Burns
- “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.” ~ Robert Burns
- “The best laid plans take 40 years to complete.” ~ Robert Burns
- “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.” ~ Robert Burns
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“God knows, I’m no the thing I should be, Nor am I even the thing I could be.” ~ Robert Burns
- “The voice of Nature loudly cries,And many a message from the skies,That something in us never dies.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Go fetch to me a pint o’ wine,
An’ fill it in a silver tassie.” ~ Robert Burns - “Prudent, cautious self-control is wisdom’s root.” ~ Robert Burns
- “O, wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An’ foolish notion.” ~ Robert Burns
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“When matters are desperate we must put on a desperate face.” ~ Robert Burns
- “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.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Man’s inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn!” ~ Robert Burns
- “If there’s another world, he lives in bliss; if there is none, he made the best of this.” ~ Robert Burns
- “I pick my favorite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armor, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.” ~ Robert Burns
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“Look abroad through Nature’s range, Nature’s mighty law is change.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Mankind is a science that defies definitions.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Suspicion is a heavy armor and with its weight it impedes more than it protects.” ~ Robert Burns
- “My dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heav’n is sent, Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!” ~ Robert Burns quotes
- “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
- “Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to min?” ~ Robert Burns
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“Suspense is worst than disappointment.” ~ Robert Burns
- “A eunuch is a man who has had his work cut out for him.” ~ Robert Burns
- “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.” ~ Robert Burns
- “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” ~ Robert Burns
- “What is life, when wanting love?
Night without a morning;
Love’s the cloudless summer sun,
Nature gay adorning.” ~ Robert Burns -
“Painters and poets have liberty to lie.” ~ Robert Burns
- “I’m truly sorry man’s dominion has broken Nature’s social union.” ~ Robert Burns
- “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.” ~ Robert Burns
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“Critics! Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.” ~ Robert Burns
- “I want someone to laugh with me, someone to be grave with me, someone to please me and help my discrimination with his or her own remark, and at times, no doubt, to admire my acuteness and penetration.” ~ Robert Burns
- “God help the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and insists on lighting up the rays of science in a fellow’s head whose skull is impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive fracture with a cudgel.” ~ 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
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“Anticipation forward points the view.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Once upon a Lammas Night
When corn rigs are bonny,
Beneath the Moon’s unclouded light,
I held awhile to Annie…
The time went by with careless heed
Between the late and early,
With small persuasion she agreed
To see me through the barley…
Corn rigs and barley rigs,
Corn rigs are bonny!
I’ll not forget that happy night
Among the rigs with Annie!” ~ Robert Burns - “The honest man, though e’er sae poor,
Is king o’ men, for a’ that!” ~ Robert Burns - “The wisest man the warl’ e’er saw,
He dearly loved the lasses, O.” ~ Robert Burns - “Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes! My peace with these, my love with those. The bursting tears my heart declare; Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled, Scots, wham Bruce has aften led, Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victory! Now ‘s the day and now ‘s the hour; See the front o’ battle lour.” ~ Robert Burns
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“The wide world is all before us – but a world without a friend.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Some wee short hour ayont the twal.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Firmness in enduring and exertion is a character I always wish to possess. I have always despised the whining yelp of complaint and cowardly resolve.” ~ Robert Burns
- “A mind that is conscious of its integrity scorns to say more than it means to perform.” ~ Robert Burns
- “Or like the snow falls in the river, A moment white-then melts for ever . . .” ~ Robert Burns
