Oliver Cromwell Quotes

A man never goes so far as when he does not know wither he is going.

No one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going.

I had rather have a plain russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else.

Being comes before well-being.

A man never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going.

Mr. Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.

Now I see there is a people risen that I cannot win with gifts or honours, offices or places; but all other sects and people I can.

It is not my design to drink or to sleep, but my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.

I would be willing to live and be farther serviceable to God and his people; but my work is done. Yet God will be with his people.

I would have been glad to have lived under my wood side, to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than undertook such a Government as this is.

That which brought me into the capacity I now stand in, was the Petition and Advice given me by you, who, in reference to the ancient Constitution, did draw me here to accept the place of Protector. There is not a man living can say I sought it, no not a man, nor woman, treading upon English ground.

You have accounted yourselves happy on being environed with a great ditch from all the world beside.

Men have been led in dark paths, through the providence and dispensation of God. Why, surely it is not to be objected to a man, for who can love to walk in the dark? But providence doth often so dispose.

And let God be judge between you and me.

Truly, though kingship be not a title but a name of office that runs through the law, yet it is not so ratione nominis, but from what is signified. It is a name of office, plainly implying a Supreme Authority. Is it more, or can it be stretched to more? I say, it is a name of office, plainly implying the Supreme Authority, and if it be so, why then I would suppose, (I am not peremptory in any thing that is matter of deduction or inference of my own,) why then I should suppose that whatsoever name hath been or shall be the name, in which the Supreme Authority shall act; why, (I say) if it had been those four or five letters, or whatsoever else it had been, that signification goes to the thing. Certainly it does, and not to the name. Why then, there can be no more said, but this, why this hath been fixt, so it may have been unfixt.