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What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.
Topic: Action
Source: Address to Unco Guild (st. 8)
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Let us do or die.
Topic: Action
Source: Bannockburn
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And may you better reck the rede,
Than ever did th' adviser.
Topic: Advice
Source: Epistle to a Young Friend
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Ah, gentle dames! it gars we greet,
To think how mony consels sweet,
How mony lengthened, sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises.
Topic: Advice
Source: Tam o'Shanter (l. 33)
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Affliction's sons are brothers in distress;
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!
Topic: Affliction
Source: In Eutropium (II, 149)
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Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
Topic: Anger
Source: Tam o'Shanter (l. 12)
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Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new.
Topic: Apparel
Source: The Cotter's Saturday Night
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His locked, lettered, braw brass collar,
Shewed him the gentleman and scholar.
Topic: Apparel
Source: The Twa Dogs
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O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us.
And foolish notion;
What airs in dress and gait wad lea'e us,
And ev'n devotion!
Topic: Appearance
Source: To a Louse
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And there begins a lang digression
About the lords o' the creation.
Topic: Argument
Source: The Twa Dogs
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All-cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn,
Led yellow Autumn, wreath'd with nodding corn.
Topic: Autumn
Source: Brigs of Ayr (l. 221)
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The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'menGang aft agley. - "To A Mouse".
Topic: Behavior
Source: None
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There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.
Topic: Certainty
Source: None
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To liken them to your auld-warld squad,
I must needs say comparisons are odd.
Topic: Comparisons
Source: Brigs of Ayr (l. 177)
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Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair.
Topic: Content
Source: Contented wi' Little
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I'll be merry and free,
I'll be sad for nae-body;
If nae-body cares for me,
I'll care for nae-body.
Topic: Content
Source: Nae-body
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And wild-scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale.
Topic: Cowslips
Source: The Chevalier's Lament
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Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear.
Topic: Cowslips
Source: Elegy on Capt. Matthew Henderson
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Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
Topic: Cruelty
Source: Man Was Made to Mourn
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It is cruelty to be humane to rebels, and humanity is cruelty.
[Fr., Contre les rebelles c'est cruante que d'estre humain, et
humanite d'estre cruel.]
Topic: Cruelty
Source: Man Was Made to Mourn
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Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn!
Topic: Cruelty
Source: None
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The daisy's for simplicity and unaffected air.
Topic: Daisies
Source: O Luve Will Venture In
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Even thou who mournst the daisy's fate,
That fate is thine--no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,
Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
Shall be thy doom!
Topic: Daisies
Source: To a Mountain Daisy
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There's some are fou o' love divine,
There's some are fou' o' brandy.
Topic: Drinking
Source: The Holy Fair (st. 30)
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Inspiring bold John Barleycorn,
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquebae, we'll face the devil!
Topic: Drinking
Source: Tam o' Shanter (l. 105)
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Now a' is done that men can do,
And a' is done in vain.
Topic: Failure
Source: It Was a' for our Rightfu' King
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The fear o' hell's the hangman's whip
To laud the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honor grip,
Let that aye be your border.
Topic: Fear
Source: Epistle to a Young Friend
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Mourn, little harebells, o'er the lea;
Ye stately foxgloves fair to see!
Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie
In scented bowers!
Ye roses on your thorny tree
The first o' flow'rs.
Topic: Flowers
Source: Elegy on Capt. Matthew Henderson
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Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
The milkwhite is the slae.
Topic: Flowers
Source: Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots
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The snowdrop and primrose our woodlands adorn,
And violets bathe in the wet o' the morn.
Topic: Flowers
Source: My Nanny's Awa
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We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu'd the gowans fine.
Topic: Friends
Source: Auld Lang Syne
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His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony,
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither--
They had been fou for weeks thegither!
Topic: Friends
Source: Tam o' Shanter
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Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne?
Topic: Friendship
Source: Auld Lang Syne, Burns refers to these words as an old folk song
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Then horn for horn they stretch and strive;
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive.
Topic: Haste
Source: To a Haggis
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My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer.
Topic: Heart
Source: My Heart's in the Highlands, from an old song, "The Strong Winds of Derry"
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Green, slender, leaf-clad holly boughs
Were twisted gracefu' round her brows,
I took her for some Scottish Muse,
By that same token,
An' come to stop those reckless vows,
Would soon be broken.
Topic: Holly
Source: The Vision (duan I, st. 9)
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At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddling, stacher thro'
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin noise an' glee.
Topic: Home
Source: The Cotter's Saturday Night (st. 3)
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To make a happy fireside clime
To weans and wife,
That's the true pathos and sublime
Of human life.
Topic: Home
Source: Epistle to Dr. Blacklock
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Dare to be honest and fear no labor.
Topic: Honesty
Source: None
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Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing.
Topic: Hope
Source: Cotter's Saturday Night (st. 16)
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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.
Topic: Inspirational
Source: None
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Hear, Land o' Cakes, and brither Scots,
Frae Maidenkirk to Johnie Groat's;-
If there's a hole in a' your coats,
I rede you tent it:
A chield's amang you takin notes,
And, faith, he'll prent it.
Topic: Journalism
Source: On Captain Grose's Peregrinations Thro' Scotland
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Comin' through the rye, poor body,
Comin' through the rye,
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin' through the rye
. . . .
Gin a body meet a body
Comin' through the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body cry?
Topic: Kisses
Source: The Bob-tailed Lass, taken from an old song
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Oh, stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay,
Nor quit for me the trembling spray,
A hapless lover courts thy lay,
Thy soothing, fond complaining.
Topic: Larks
Source: Address to the Woodlark
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The landlord's laugh was ready chorus.
Topic: Laughter
Source: Tam o' Shanter
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Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a' kennin' wrang
To step aside is human.
Topic: Liberality
Source: Address to Unco Guid
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Liberty's in every blow!
Let us do or die.
Topic: Liberty
Source: Bruce to His Men at Bannockburn
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O Life! thou art a galling load, Along a rough, a weary road, To wretches such as I.
Topic: Life
Source: None
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Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray,
By passion driven;
But yet the light that led astray,
Was light from Heaven.
Topic: Light
Source: The Vision
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The great Creator to revereMust sure become the creature;But still the preaching cant forbear,And ev'n the rigid feature:Yet ne'er with wits profane to rangeBe complaisance extended;An atheist laugh's a poor exchangeFor deity offended. - Epistle to a Young Friend, An.
Topic: Literature
Source: None
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