Charles V Quotes

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.

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

(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.”

I found great enmities, personal passions, leagues and alliances among [my] officials, constantly turning everyone against the rest. Therefore, to see and ascertain the truth, I followed up the accusations against my fiscal officers made by their adversaries, and I examined their accounts from 1520 to 1530, that is for 10 years, to see if they had robbed me as some claimed. But, although some matters were not as satisfactory as they should have been, I found no fault… If there is a fault here, the principal cause is that everyone desires so many privileges to limit my sovereignty so that we would almost become colleagues and I would no longer be in charge.

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.

I have a glove into which I can put your whole city of Paris.

Emperor Charles: “[Our policy] has always been to deal first with matters which are easiest to resolve and leave the most difficult ones until last.”

In view of Our special love for and inclination to the German Nation and the Holy Roman Empire…as Roman emperor and supreme steward of Christendom, it pertains to Our Imperial office to confess Our obligation to guard, protect, and maintain the holy Christian faith as it has been preserved until now.

My life has been one long journey.

I will not blush like my predecessor Sigismund.

These heretics have been so obstinate that no policy has worked or sufficed to get them to recognise their errors… I can see that if there were a way of forcing them we could justly move against them, but that is not the case now, nor do I currently have the means, because I am tired, alone and without help and there are so many of them that great force would be needed to overcome them. The true remedy is to convene a general council.

It has brought me the greatest sorrow you can imagine, because he was the most handsome little boy for his age that you could find. I feel his death even more than the loss of my own son [Fernando] because he was older and I knew him better and treated him as my own son. Nevertheless we must accept the will of God. May God forgive me, but I wish He had taken Christian instead of his son.

The Nuncio Baldesari Castilione: “[His majesty] should make up his mind and fast, because delay is very dangerous.”

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.