Walter Raleigh Quotes

Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care
'Cause another's rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day,
Or the flow'ry meads in May,
If she think not well of me,
What care I how fair she be?

Every fool knoweth that hatreds are the cinders of affection.

No man is wise or safe, but he that is honest.

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!

If she undervalue me,
What care I how fair she be?

Better were it to be unborn than ill-bred.

Shall I, like an hermit, dwell
On a rock or in a cell?

No man is esteemed for gay garments but by fools and women.

Our passions are most like to floods and streams;
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.

War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory and good fortune.

A wise man ought not to desire to inhabit that country where men have more authority than laws. For indeed that country deserves to be desired where every one may securely enjoy his own, not that where with facility it may be taken away; and that friends, for fear to lose their own, are enforced to forsake them.

Cowards fear to die; but courage stout,
Rather than live in snuff, will be put out.

The world itself is but a larger prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution.

Silence in love bewrays more woe
Than words, though ne’er so witty:
A beggar that is dumb, you know, May challenge double pity.

Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.