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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.

— Robert Burns

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Poetry

More quotes by Robert Burns

The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley;
And leave us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy.

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

Tam o' Shanter (1790)

Nae man can tether time or tide.

Tam o' Shanter (1790)

What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.

Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.

Tam o' Shanter (1790)

All Robert Burns quotes →

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Ralph Waldo Emerson Nature (1836)

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality.

T. S. Eliot Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

Poetry, unlike oratory, should not aim at clarity...but be dense with meaning, 'something to be chewed and digested'.

George Chapman Ovid's Banquet of Sense (1595)

I am no poet, but if you think for yourselves, as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your minds.

Michael Faraday

Attribution

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