“Nature’s law, That man was made to mourn. Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn! O Death, the poor man’s dearest friend, The kindest and the best!”

Look abroad through Nature’s range, Nature’s mighty law is change.

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.

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.

Oh would some power the gift give us, to see ourselves as others see us!

Some wee short hour ayont the twal.

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

Suspense is worst than disappointment.

A eunuch is a man who has had his work cut out for him.

The best plans of men and mice often go awry.

She is a winsome wee thing, She is a handsome wee thing, She is a bonny wee thing, This sweet wee wife o’ mine.

The trout in yonder wimpling burn – That glides, a silver dart, – And, safe beneath the shady thorn, – Defies the anglers art.

To step aside is human.

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!

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.

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.

Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious, O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious.

And surely one of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.

It’s always best to tell the truth.

The best time to plan a book is while you’re doing the dishes.

If you waste your time and energy on things that don’t matter in the outcome of the game, then when you get to the game you’re not going to give your teammates the best that you have to offer.

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, ‘A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!

There is no real direction here, neither lines of power nor cooperation. Decisions are never really made – at best they manage to emerge, from a chaos of peeves, whims, hallucinations and all around assholery.

What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn’t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.

The evening’s the best part of the day. You’ve done your day’s work. Now you can put your feet up and enjoy it.