If any friend desire thee to be his surety, give him a part of what thou hast to spare; if he press thee further, he is not thy friend at all, for friendship rather chooseth harm to itself than offereth it.
—Walter Raleigh
Take special care that thou never trust any friend or servant with any matter that may endanger thine estate; for so shalt thou make thyself a bond slave to him that thou trustest, and leave thyself always to his mercy.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Trust
Thou mayest be sure that he that will in private tell thee of thy faults, is thy friend, for he adventures thy dislike, and doth hazard thy hatred; 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 follies that bewitcheth mankind.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Friendship
Divines do rightly infer from the sixth commandment, that scandalizing one’s neighbor with false and malicious reports, whereby I vex his spirit, and consequently impair his healthy is a degree of murder.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Slander
No one is wise or safe, but they that are honest.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Honesty
Let thy servants be such as thou mayest command, and entertain none about thee but those to whom thou givest wages; for those that will serve thee without thy hire will cost thee treble as much as they that know thy fare.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Servants
Who so taketh in hand to frame any state or government ought to presuppose that all men are evil, and at occasions will show themselves so to be.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Government
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.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Fanaticism
On death and judgment, heaven and hell, who oft doth think, must needs die well.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Death
He that cannot refrain from much speaking is like a city without walls; therefore if thou observest this rule in all assemblies thou shalt seldom err; restrain thy choler, hearken much, and speak little, for the tongue is the instrument of the greatest good and greatest evil that is done in the world.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Talking
But it is hard to know them from friends, they are so obsequious and full of protestations; for a wolf resembles a dog, so doth a flatterer a friend.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Flattery
The engine is the heart of an airplane, but the pilot is its soul.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Flying
Be advised what thou dost discourse of, and what thou maintainest whether touching religion, state, or vanity; for if thou err in the first, thou shalt be accounted profane; if in the second, dangerous; if in the third, indiscreet and foolish.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Judgment, Judging
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
Topics: Power
Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred; also to choose such an opportunity for writing as it may be lawful to think what they will, and write what they think, which is a rare happiness of the time.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: History, Historians
Have ever more care that thou be beloved of thy wife, rather than thyself besotted on her; and thou shalt judge of her love by these two observations: first, if thou perceive she have a care of thy estate, and exercise herself therein; the other, if she study to please thee, and be sweet unto thee in conversation, without thy instruction; for love needs no teaching nor precept.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Marriage
He that doth not as other men do, but endeavoureth that which ought to be done, shall thereby rather incur peril than preservation; for who so laboreth to be sincerely perfect and good shall necessarily perish, living among men that are generally evil.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Integrity
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 hath 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!
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Dying, Death
Bestow thy youth so that thou mayst have comfort to remember it, when it hath forsaken thee, and not sigh and grieve at the account thereof. Whilst thou art young thou wilt think it will never have an end; but behold, the longest day hath his evening, and thou shalt enjoy it but once; it never turns again; use it therefore 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
Topics: Youth, Life
No man is esteemed for gay garments, but by fools and women.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Dress
Better were it to be unborn than to be ill bred.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Manners
What thou givest after thy death, remember that thou givest it to a stranger, and most times to an enemy; for he that shall marry thy wife will despise thee, thy memory and thine, and shall possess the quiet of thy labors, the fruit when thou hast planted, enjoy thy love, and spend with joy and ease what thou hast spared and gotten with care and travail.
—Walter Raleigh
We may gather out of history a policy no less wise than eternal, by the comparison and application of other men’s forepast miseries with our own like errors and ill deservings.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: History
I do not understand those to be poor and in want, who are vagabonds and beggars, but such as are old and cannot travel, such poor widows and fatherless children as are ordered to be relieved, and the poor tenants that travail to pay their rents and are driven to poverty by mischance, and not by riot or careless expenses; on such have thou compassion, and God will bless thee for it.
—Walter Raleigh
No man is esteemed for colorful garments except by fools and women.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Dress, Fashion
I can’t write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Awareness, Acceptance, Realization, Expectations, Realistic Expectations
If thy friends be of better quality than thyself, thou mayest be sure of two things; the first, they will be more careful to keep thy counsel, because they have more to lose than thou hast; the second, they will esteem thee for thyself, and not for that which thou dost possess.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Friendship
It would be an unspeakable advantage, both to the public and private, if men would consider that great truth, that no man is wise or safe, but he that is honest.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Honesty
If thou be bound for a stranger, thou art a fool; if for a merchant, thou puttest thy estate to learn to swim; if for a lawyer, he will find an evasion by a syllable or a word; if for a poor man, thou must pay it thyself; if for a rich man, he needs not; therefore, from suretyship, as from a manslayer or enchanter, bless thyself; for the best return will be this—if thou force him for whom thou art bound to pay it himself he will become thy enemy; if thou pay it thyself, thou wilt become a beggar.
—Walter Raleigh
It were better for a man to be subject to any vice, than to drunkenness; for all other vanities and sins are recovered, but a drunkard will never shake off the delight of beastliness; for the longer it possesseth a man, the more he will delight in it, and the older he groweth the more he shall be subject to it; for it dulleth the spirits, and destroyeth the body as ivy doth the ola tree; or as the worm that engendereth in the kernel of the nut.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Drunkenness
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