Robert Burns

The wide world is all before us--<br /> But a world without a friend.

Let us do or die.

What's done we partly may compute,<br /> But know not what's resisted.

There's some are fou o' love divine,<br /> There's some are fou' o' brandy.

Hear how he clears the points o' Faith<br /> Wi' rattling an' thumpin'!<br /> Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,<br /> He's stampin', and he's jumpin'!

John Anderson, my jo, John,<br /> When we were first acquent,<br /> Your locks were like the raven,<br /> Your bonny brow was brent.

To liken them to your auld-warld squad,<br /> I must needs say comparisons are odd.

Man,--whose heaven-erected face<br /> The smiles of love adorn,--<br /> Man's inhumanity to man<br /> Makes countless thousands mourn!

The rank is but the guinea's stamp,<br /> The man's the gowd for a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,<br /> A marquis, duke, and a' that;<br /> But an honest man's aboon his might:<br /> Guid faith, he maunna fa' that.

A man's a man for a' that!

Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear.

And wild-scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale.

Yon rose-buds in the morning-dew,<br /> How pure amang the leaves sae green!

I'll pu' the budding rose, when Phoebus peeps in view,<br /> For its like a baumy kiss o'er her sweet bonnie mou'!

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,<br /> And never brought to mind?<br /> Should auld acquaintance be forgot,<br /> And days o' lang syne?

And let us mind, faint heart ne'er wan<br /> A lady fair.<br /> Wha does the utmost that he can<br /> Will whyles do mair.

The landlady and Tam grew gracious<br /> Wi' favours secret, sweet and precious.

Duncan Gray cam here to woo,<br /> Ha, ha, the wooing o't!<br /> On blithe Yuletide when we were fou,<br /> Ha, ha, the wooing o't!<br /> Maggie coost her head fu' high,<br /> Looked asklent and unco skeigh,<br /> Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh:<br /> Ha, ha! the wooing o't!

She is a winsome wee thing,<br /> She is a handsome wee thing,<br /> She is a bonny wee thing,<br /> This sweet wee wife o' mine.

Were such the wife had fallen to my part,<br /> I'd break her spirit, or I'd break her heart.

Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.

O wad some power the giftie gie us<br /> To see oursel's as ithers see us!<br /> It wad frae monie a blunder free us.<br /> And foolish notion;<br /> What airs in dress and gait wad lea'e us,<br /> And ev'n devotion!

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn,<br /> What dangers thou canst make us scorn!<br /> Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;<br /> Wi' usquebae, we'll face the devil!

Man's inhumanity to man<br /> Makes countless thousands mourn!

Then gently scan your brother man,<br /> Still gentler sister woman;<br /> Though they may gang a' kennin' wrang<br /> To step aside is human.

I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.

Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.

Suspense is worse than disappointment.

The wide world is all before us - but a world without a friend.