“A women can make an average man great, and a great man average.”

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.

Gie me ae spark o’ Nature’s fire, That’s a’ the learning I desire.

Mankind is a science that defies definitions.

When Nature her great masterpiece designed,And framed her last, best work, the human mind,Her eye intent on all the wondrous plan,She formed of various stuff the various Man.

Dare to be honest and fear no labor. … Opera is where a man gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.

The voice of Nature loudly cries,And many a message from the skies,That something in us never dies.

The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, Gang aft a-gley, And leave us nought but grief and pain, For promised joy.

Some rhyme a neebor’s name to lash; Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu’ cash; Some rhyme to court the countra clash, An’ raise a din; For me, an aim I never fash; I rhyme for fun.

There’s some are fou o’ love divine; There’s some are fou o’ brandy.

A jostling scrum of office buildings so mediocre that the only way you ever remember them is by the frustration they induce – like a basketball team standing shoulder to shoulder between you and the Mona Lisa.

My mom was a teacher – I have the greatest respect for the profession – we need great teachers – not poor or mediocre ones.

Be neither too remote nor too familiar.

The average millionaire can’t tell you who got thrown off the island last night.

The average result has to be the average result. By definition, everybody can’t beat the market. As I always say, the iron rule of life is that only 20% of the people can be in the top fifth. That’s just the way it is.

The average woman sees only the weak points in a strong man, and the good points in a weak one.

Passionately protest mediocrity.

There is no other subject on which the average mind is so much confused as the subject of tolerance and intolerance… Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to principles. Intolerance applies only to principles, but never to persons.