Top 114 Quotes & Sayings by Walter Raleigh
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English explorer Walter Raleigh.
Last updated on December 25, 2024.
Whosoever, in writing a modern history, shall follow truth too near the heels, it may happily strike out his teeth.
Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.
Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust.
The difference between a rich man and a poor man is this--the former eats when he pleases, and the latter when he can get it.
If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee, and be thy love.
This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases and miseries.
Men endure the losses that befall them by mere casualty with more patience than the damages they sustain by injustice.
It is not truth, but opinion that can travel the world without a passport.
If thou marry beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which, perchance, will neither last nor please thee one year.
The most divine light only shineth on those minds which are purged from all worldly dross and human uncleanliness.
Trust few men; above all, keep your follies to yourself.
Our immortal souls, while righteous, are by God himself beautified with the title of his own image and similitude.
It is observed in the course of worldly things, that men's fortunes are oftener made by their tongues than by their virtues; and more men's fortunes overthrown thereby than by vices.
Never spend anything before thou have it; for borrowing is the canker and death of every man's estate.
The first draught serveth for health, the second for pleasure, the third for shame, the fourth for madness.
No man is esteemed for colorful garments except by fools and women.
God is absolutely good; and so, assuredly, the cause of all that is good.
I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks; And when I'm introduced to one I wish I thought What Jolly Fun!
Flatterers are the worst kind of traitors, for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, correct thee in nothing, but so shadow and paint thy follies and vices as thou shalt never, by their will, discover good from evil, or vice from virtue.
But it is hard to know them from friends, they are so obsequious and full of protestations; for a wolf resembles a dog, so doth a flatterer a friend.
Our souls, piercing through the impurity of flesh, behold the highest heaven, and thence bring knowledge to contemplate the ever-during, glory and termless joy.
All men are evil and will declare themselves to be so when occasion is offered.
If she undervalues me,
What care I how fair she be?
But true love is a durable fire, In the mind ever burning, Never sick, never old, never dead, From itself never turning.
[It is a basic principle of a tyrant] to unarm his people of weapons, money and all means whereby they resist his power.
The useful type of successful teacher is one whose main interest is the children, not the subject.
Talking much is a sign of vanity, for the one who is lavish with words is cheap in deeds.
A man must first govern himself ere he is fit to govern a family; and his family ere he be fit to bear the government of the commonwealth.
Remember, that if thou marry for beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which, perchance, will never last nor please thee one year; and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no price at all.
What dependence can I have on the alleged events of ancient history, when I find such difficulty in ascertaining the truth regarding a matter that has taken place only a few minutes ago, and almost in my own presence!
War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune.
So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lieth.
He that doth not as other men do, but endeavoureth that which ought to be done, shall thereby rather incur peril than preservation; for who so laboreth to be sincerely perfect and good shall necessarily perish, living among men that are generally evil.
According to Solomon, life and death are in the power of the tongue; and as Euripides truly affirmeth, every unbridled tongue in the end shall find itself unfortunate; for in all that ever I observed in the course of worldly things, I ever found that men's fortunes are oftener made by their tongues than by their virtues, and more men's fortunes overthrown thereby, also, than by their vices.
Hatreds are the cinders of affection.
It would be an unspeakable advantage, both to the public and private, if men would consider that great truth, that no man is wise or safe but he that is honest.
What is our life? A play of passion. Our mirth the music of division. Our mother's wombs the tyring houses be, Where we are drest for this short Comedy.
Desire attained is not desire,
But as the cinders of the fire.
The gain of lying is nothing else but not to be trusted of any, nor to be believed when we say the truth.
Use your youth so that you may have comfort to remember it when it has forsaken you, and not sigh and grieve at the account thereof.
All, or the greatest part of men that have aspired to riches or power, have attained thereunto either by force or fraud, and what they have by craft or cruelty gained, to cover the foulness of their fact, they call purchase, as a name more honest. Howsoever, he that for want of will or wit useth not those means, must rest in servitude and poverty.
It is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King.
Our shipping and sea service is our best and safest defence as being the only fortification and rampart of England.
But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust.
Better it were not to live than to live a coward.
Youth is the opportunity to do something and to be somebody.
There is nothing more becoming any wise man, than to make choice of friends, for by them thou shalt be judged what thou art: let them therefore be wise and virtuous, and none of those that follow thee for gain; but make election rather of thy betters, than thy inferiors.
No one is wise or safe, but they that are honest.
If thy friends be of better quality than thyself, thou mayest be sure of two things; first, they will be more careful to keep thy counsel, because they have more to lose than thou hast; the second, they will esteem thee for thyself, and not for that which thou dost possess.
No one can take less pains than to hold his tongue. Hear much, and speak little; for the tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and greatest evil that is done in the world.
In a word, we may gather out of History a policy no less wise than I eternal; by the comparison and application of other mens fore-passed miseries with our own like errours and ill-deservings.
Prevention is the daughter of intelligence.
It is the nature of men having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean.
I shall never be persuaded that God hath shut up all light of learning within the lantern of Aristotle's brain.
'Tis a sharp medicine, but it will cure all that ails you.
Whoever commands the sea, commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.
The world is itself but a larger prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution.
O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hath cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet!
To live thy better, let thy worst thoughts die.
The best time for marriage will be towards thirty, for as the younger times are unfit, either to choose or to govern a wife and family, so, if thou stay long, thou shalt hardly see the education of thy children, who, being left to strangers, are in effect lost; and better were it to be unborn than ill-bred; for thereby thy posterity shall either perish, or remain a shame to thy name.
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