Walter Raleigh Quotes

If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every shepherd's tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move
To live with thee and be thy Love.<p>But fading flowers in every field,
To winter floods their treasures yield;
A honey'd tongue, a heart of gall,
Is Fancy's spring, but Sorrow's fall.

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

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!

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

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.

Every fool knoweth that hatreds are the cinders of affection.

Fame's but a hollow echo; gold, pure clay;
Honour, the darling but of one short day,
Beauty—th' eye's idol—but a damasked skin;
State, but a golden prison to live in
And torture free-born minds.

There is nothing exempt from the peril of mutation.

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.

It is the nature of men, having escaped one extreme, which by force they were constrained long to endure, to run headlong into the other extreme, forgetting that virtue doth always consist in the mean.

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!

Why dost thou not strike? Strike, man!