Walter Raleigh > Quotes

“But Love is a durable fire
in the mind ever burning
Never sick, never old, never dead
From itself, never turning.”
― Sir Walter Raleigh

“The world itself is but a large prison, out of which some are daily led to execution.”
― Sir Walter Raleigh

“What is our life? A play of passion.
Our mirth the music of division.
Our mother's wombs the tyring houses be,
Where we are drest for this short Comedy.
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
That sits and marks still who doth act amiss,
Our graves that hide us from the searching sun,
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus march we playing to our latest rest,
Only we die in earnest, that's no jest.”
― Walter Raleigh

“Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.”
― Sir Walter Raleigh

“Even such is Time *

Even such is Time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth 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.

Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618)





*These lines are said to have been composed by Sir Walter Raleigh on the night before his execution.”
― Sir Walter Raleigh

“False love, desire, and beauty frail, adieu!
Dead is the root whence all these fancies grew.”
― Walter Raleigh

“Thou mayest be sure that he that will in private tell thee of thy faults is thy friend, for he adventures thy dislike and hazards thy hatred; for there are few men that can endure it, every man for the most part delighting in self-praise, which is one of the most universal fallies that bewitcheth mankind”
― Sir Walter Raleigh

“PASSIONS are likened best to floods and streams:
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb;”
― Walter Raleigh

“Give me a man who whistles while he works.”
― Sir Walter Raleigh, The History of the World

“Thou may be sure that he who will tell thee of thy faults is thy friend, for he ventures thy dislike and doth hazard thy hatred.”
― Walter Raleigh

“When the grand twelve million jury of our sins and sinful fury, 'Gainst our souls black verdicts give, Christ pleads his death, and then we live. Be thou my speaker, taintless pleader, unblotted lawyer, true proceeder.”
― Sir Walter Raleigh

“Our taste must always be, more or less, the victim of our limitations, but we should beware of glorying in it, and, above all, we should beware of mistaking the aversions of timidity and sensibility for critical judgments.”
― Sir Walter Raleigh

“The Wood is that that makes the gallows tree;
The Weed is that that strings the hangman's bag;
The Wag, my pretty knave, betokens thee.”
― Walter Raleigh

“Even such is Time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and 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.”
― Sir Walter Raleigh

“A professional man of letters, especially if he is much at war with unscrupulous enenemies, is naturally jealous of his privacy... so it was, I think, with Dryden.”
― Raleigh, Sir Walter

“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.”
― Walter Raleigh

“All, or the greatest part of men that have aspired to riches or power, have attained thereunto either by force or fraud, and what they have by craft or cruelty gained, to cover the foulness of their fact, they call purchase, as a name more honest. Howsoever, he that for want of will or wit useth not those means, must rest in servitude and poverty.”
― Walter Raleigh

“Tell zeal it wants devotion,
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it metes but motion,
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.”
― Walter Raleigh, The Lie

“Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust.
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honor how it alters;
Tell beauty how she blasteth;
Tell favor how it falters.
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.”
― Sir Walter Raleigh

“Use thy youth so that thou mayest have comfort to remember it when it hath forsaken thee, and not sigh and grieve at the account thereof. Use it as the spring-time which soon departeth, and wherein thou oughtest to plant and sow all provisions for a long and happy life.”
― Walter Raleigh

“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)”
― Sir Walter Raleigh

“Even such is Time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth 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.

- "Even such is Time" from "Petition to Anne of Denmark”
― Sir Walter Raleigh