Top 114 Quotes & Sayings by Walter Raleigh - Page 2

Even such isTime, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.

I dare not think that any supercelestial heaven, or whatsoever else ... was increate and eternal. And as for the place of God before the world created, the finite wisdom of mortal men hath no perception of it; neither can it limit the seat of infinite power, no more than infinite power itself can be limited; for his place is in himself, whom no magnitude else can contain.

No mortal thing can bear so high a price, But that with mortal thing it may be bought.

Corrupt seeds bring forth corrupt plants.

All histories do show, and wise politicians do hold it necessary that, for the well-governing of every Commonweal, it behoveth man to presuppose that all men are evil, and will declare themselves so to be when occasion is offered.

And when I'm introduced to one I wish I thought What Jolly Fun!

Romance is a love affair in other than domestic surroundings.

Be advised what thou dost discourse of, and what thou maintainest whether touching religion, state, or vanity; for if thou err in the first, thou shalt be accounted profane; if in the second, dangerous; if in the third, indiscreet and foolish.

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall.

Expressive glances Shall be our lances And pops of Sillery Our light artillery.

A professional man of letters, especially if he is much at war with unscrupulous enemies, is naturally jealous of his privacy; he will be silent on his more personal interests, or, if he must speak, will veil them under conventional forms.

Covetous ambition, thinking all too little which presently it hath, supposeth itself to stand in need of that which it hath not.

Whoso desireth to govern well and securely, it behoveth him to have a vigilant eye to the proceedings of great princes, and to consider seriously of their designs.

Oh, doughty sons of Hungary! May all success Attend and bless Your warlike ironmongery!

Take special care that thou never trust any friend or servant with any matter that may endanger thine estate; for so shalt thou make thyself a bond-slave to him that thou trustest, and leave thyself always to his mercy.

Whoso taketh in hand to govern a multitude, either by way of liberty or principality, and cannot assure himself of those persons that are enemies to that enterprise, doth frame a state of short perseverance.

An anthology is like all the plums and orange peel picked out of a cake.

Give my scallop-shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon, My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation, My gown of glory, hope's true gage; And thus I'll take my pilgrimage.

Divine is Love and scorneth worldly pelf, And can be bought with nothing but with self.

... but the longest day hath its evening.

The necessity of war, which among human actions is the most lawless, hath some kind of affinity with the necessity of law.

A wandering minstrel I A thing of shreds and patches Of ballads, songs and snatches And dreamy lullaby!

Our bodies are but the anvils of pain and disease and our minds the hives of unnumbered cares.

Above all things, be not made an ass to carry the burdens of other men if any friend desire thee to be his surety, give him a part of what thou has to spare if he presses thee further, he is not thy friend at all.

Except thou desire to hasten thine end, take this for a general rule, that thou never add any artificial heat to thy body by wine or spice.

Less pains in the world a man cannot take than to bold his tongue.

The bodies of men, munition, and money may justly be called the sinews of war.

Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred; also to choose such an opportunity for writing as it may be lawful to think what they will, and write what they think, which is a rare happiness of the time.

There is nothing exempt from the peril of mutation; the earth, heavens, and whole world is thereunto subject.

Who so desireth to know what will be hereafter, let him think of what is past, for the world hath ever been in a circular revolution; whatsoever is now, was heretofore; and things past or present, are no other than such as shall be again: Redit orbis in orbem.

There never was a man of solid understanding, whose apprehensions are sober, and by a pensive inspection advised, but that he hath found by an irresistible necessity one true God and everlasting being.

Love likes not the falling fruit, Nor the withered tree.

When a felon's not engaged in his employment Or maturing his felonious little plans His capacity for innocent enjoyment Is just as great as any honest man's Ah! When constabulary duty's to be done A policeman's lot is not a happy one.

It is plain there is not in nature a point of stability to be found; everything either ascends or declines; when wars are ended abroad, sedition begins at home; and when men are freed from fighting for necessity, they quarrel through ambition.

Silence in love betrays more woe - Than words though ne'er so witty; A beggar that is dumb, you know, may challenge double pity.

Let valour end my life!

Because all men are apt to flatter themselves, to entertain the addition of other men's praises is most perilous.

But in vain she did conjure him, To depart her presence so, Having a thousand tongues t' allure him And but one to bid him go. When lips invite, And eyes delight, And cheeks as fresh as rose in June, Persuade delay,-- What boots to say Forego me now, come to me soon.

Bad language or abuse, I never, never use, Whatever the emergency; Though 'Bother it' I may Occasionally say, I never use a big, big D : What, never? : No, never! : What never? : Well, hardly ever! : Hardly ever swears a big, big D Then give three cheers, and one cheer more, For the well-bred Captain of the Pinafore!

I can't write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me.

Fain would I, but I dare not; I dare, and yet I may not; I may, although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.

Passions are liken'd best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb; So, when affection yields discourse, it seems The bottom is but shallow whence they come. They that are rich in words, in words discover

Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.

The House of Peers, throughout the war, Did nothing in particular, And did it very well: Yet Britain set the world ablaze In good King George's glorious days!

Whosoever in writing a modern history shall follow the truth too near the heels it may haply strike out his teeth.

In a letter to a friend the thought is often unimportant, and the feeling, if it be only a desire to entertain him, every thing.

Hath triumphed over time, which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over.

The longer it possesseth a man the more he will delight in it, and the older he groweth the more he shall be subject to it; for it dulleth the spirits, and destroyeth the body as ivy doth the old tree, or as the worm that engendereth in the kernal of the nut.

There is no error which hath not some appearance of probability resembling truth, which, when men who study to be singular find out, straining reason, they then publish to the world matter of contention and jangling.

Death, which hateth and destroyeth a man, is believed; God, which hath made him and loves him, is always deferred.

Better were it to be unborn than to be ill bred.

It were better for a man to be subject to any vice than to drunkenness; for all other vanities and sins are recovered, but a drunkard will never shake off the delight of beastliness.

Passions are likened best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.

If any friend desire thee to be his surety, give him a part of what thou hast to spare; if he press thee further, he is not thy friend at all, for friendship rather chooseth harm to itself than offereth it. If thou be bound for a stranger, thou art a fool; if for a merchant, thou puttest thy estate to learn to swim.