“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, Here's a Health to Them That's Awa, st. 1 (Posthumous Pieces, 1799)

About Robert Burns

1759 – 1796

Scottish poet and lyricist, regarded as the national poet of Scotland.

“Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing.”

“The best laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley; And leave us naught but grief and pain For promised joy.”

“Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn.”

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.”

“Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.”

“The young have exalted notions, because they have not been humbled by life or learned its necessary limitations.”

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.”

“I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research.”

“There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them.”