best Burns Quotes?: I'm doing Research for Burns' Night!

[Peter Crowe]

I have a few favourite lines from Burns:

"From scenes like these Old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
'An honest man's the noblest work of God' (Pope)"

From the Cotter's Saturday Night

"O YE whose cheek the tear of pity stains,
Draw near with pious rev’rence, and attend!
Here lie the loving husband’s dear remains,
The tender father, and the gen’rous friend;
The pitying heart that felt for human woe,
The dauntless heart that fear’d no human pride;
The friend of man-to vice alone a foe;
For ev’n his failings lean’d to virtue’s side."

Epitaph on my Ever Honored Father

"Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others,
this is my criterion of goodness;
and whatever injures society at large, or an individual in it,
this is my measure of iniquity."

In a letter from Burns in 1789

[digitalR2]

My favourite one!!

My Heart's In The Highlands

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth ;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover'd with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

- Robert Burns -

Some illustration:

Glenfinnan Valley


Glenfinnan Viaduct