Charles V Quotes

Fortune hath somewhat the nature of a woman; if she be too much wooed, she is the farther off.

I will not blush like my predecessor Sigismund.

I speak in Latin/Spanish (depending on the source) to God, Italian to Women, French to Men, and German to my Horse.

…Begging Your Holiness as earnestly as I can that you convene a general council with the urgency that the situation demands and that for optimal effect Your Holiness should write to other princes and potentates explaining why. Namely the need to create a united front against the expected Turkish attack and to prevent the heresies that have recently appeared from spreading further.

Autant de langues que l'homme sçait parler, autant de fois est-il homme.

Ever since our emancipation and entry into the lordship and governance of our Netherlands provinces, we have constantly tried and strongly desired and wanted to create good order and sound policies in all our affairs and end the disorder that has existed in the past because of the wars and divisions that prevailed, as well as for other reasons, and even in the organisation of our own household on which the wellbeing, honour and tranquility of ourselves and of our ministers, dominions and subjects largely depends.

Leave him alone. He has already met his judge. I wage war on the living, not the dead.

I was writing to my wife when your letter arrived, and now I want to look at her portrait myself, seeing the great beauty it contains. I am such a devoted husband that other beautiful women now do nothing for me.

You know that my ancestors were the most Christian emperors of the great nation of Germany, the Catholic kings of Spain, the archdukes of Austria, and the dukes of Burgundy, who all were, until death, faithful sons of the Roman Church.… I am therefore resolved to maintain everything which these my forebears have established to the present…and to settle this matter I will use all my dominions and possessions, my friends, my body, my blood, my life, and my soul. It would be a disgrace for you and me, the illustrious and renowned nation of Germany, privileged and pre-eminent as protector and defender of the Catholic faith, if heresy, or even just the suspicion of heresy, and the degradation of the Christian religion were to return to the hearts of men in our time to our perpetual dishonour.

Translation 1: As many languages as you know, so many separate individuals you are worth. (Robertson)

Since our Lord, who gave Fernando to us, wished to have him back, we must bend to His will and thank Him and beg Him to protect what is left. With great affection, my lady, I beg you to do this and to forget and leave behind all pain and grief.

Detlef Ploese and Guenther Vogler, eds., Buch der Reformation. Eine Auswahl zeitgenössischer Zeugnisse (Berlin: Union Verlag, 1989), pp. 245-53

Francis and I are in perfect accord. He wants Milan and so do I.

(in regard to a counter attack against the Turks) “…because that is what I have wanted to do since I was a child and also to fulfill the responsibilities of my imperial title as chief protector and defender of our Christian religion. Therefore, despite the vast costs and distractions that I face at present on account of the war against the French, I have resolved to assemble a fleet as soon as I can to relieve Rhodes… ready to spare nothing to preserve, defend and deliver Rhodes from these tyrannical infidel enemies, devoting all our kingdom and dominions and our person if necessary.”

We are more inclined to marry [your] sister the infanta, Isabella, than anyone else because there is no daughter of a king as ready as her.