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I'll ha'e nae hauf-way hoose, but aye be whaur
Extremes meet — it's the only way I ken
To dodge the curst conceit o' bein' richt
That damns the vast majority o' men.

— Hugh MacDiarmid A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926)

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Notes from Wikiquote

These lines are on MacDiarmid's tombstone

More quotes by Hugh MacDiarmid

The number of people who can copulate properly may be few; the number who can write well are infinitely fewer.

Review of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

To meddle wi the thistle and to pluck
The figs frae't is my metier, I think.

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926)

The rose of all the world is not for me.
I want for my part
Only the little white rose of Scotland
That smells sharp and sweet — and breaks the heart.

I amna fou' sae muckle as tired — deid dune.
It's gey and hard wark coupin' gless for gless
Wi' Cruivie and Gilsanquhar and the like,
And I'm no' juist as bauld as aince I wes.

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926)

All Hugh MacDiarmid quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Hugh MacDiarmid (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.