Walter Raleigh Quotes

[History] hath triumphed over time, which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over.

Even such is time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days.
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust!

So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lies.

Better were it to be unborn than ill-bred.

Go, Soul, the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless arrant:
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.<p>Say to the court, it glows.
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What’s good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

Speaking much also is a sign of vanity; for he that is lavish in words is a niggard in deeds.

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

Fain would I, but I dare not; I dare, and yet I may not;
I may, although I care not, for pleasure when I play not.

So when thou hast, as I Commanded thee, done blabbing — Although to give the lie Deserves no less than stabbing —
Stab at thee he that will,
No stab the soul can kill.

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

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

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 hast 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 [Here lies]!

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

He that doth not as other men do, but endeavoureth that which ought to be done, shall thereby rather incur peril than preservation; for whoso laboureth to be sincerely perfect and good shall necessarily perish, living among men that are generally evil.

All histories do shew, and wise politicians do hold it necessary that, for the well-governing of every Commonweal, it behoveth man to presuppose that all men are evil, and will declare themselves so to be when occasion is offered.