Hugh MacDiarmid citations

“If there's a sword-like sang
That can cut Scotland clear
O a' the warld beside
Rax me the hilt o't here.

For there's nae jewal till
Frae the rest o earth it's free,
Wi the starry separateness
I'd fain to Scotland gie.”

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Hugh MacDiarmid

To Circumjack Cencrastus

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

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Hugh MacDiarmid

Review of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928)

“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.”

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Hugh MacDiarmid

The Little White Rose

“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.”

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Hugh MacDiarmid A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926)(opening lines)

“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.”

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Hugh MacDiarmid

Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926), II.141-4
These lines are on MacDiarmid's tombstone