Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Walter Raleigh (English Explorer, Courtier)

Sir Walter Raleigh (c.1552–1618,) sometimes spelled Ralegh, was an English courtier, navigator, and poet. A favorite of Elizabeth I, he organized several voyages of exploration and colonization to the Americas and introduced potato and tobacco plants to England.

Born in Hayes Barton in Devon, Raleigh studied briefly at Oxford but left to volunteer for the Huguenot cause in France. In 1578, he joined a piratical expedition against the Spaniards organized by his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert, and in 1580 he went to Ireland, where he brutally suppressed the rising of the Desmonds. He became a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, who heaped favors upon him, including estates, the ‘farm of wines,’ and a license to export woolen broadcloths. In 1585 he was appointed Lord Warden of the Stannaries and Vice-Admiral of Devon and Cornwall. The same year he entered parliament as MP for Devon.

From 1584–89, Raleigh sent an expedition to America to take unknown lands in the queen’s name and dispatched an abortive settlement to Roanoke Island, North Carolina (1585–86.) He later made unsuccessful attempts to colonize Virginia and introduced tobacco and potatoes into Britain. Eclipsed as court favorite in 1587 by the young 2nd Earl of Essex, he went to Ireland and planted his estates in Munster with settlers and became a close friend of the poet Edmund Spenser.

In 1595, with five ships, Raleigh explored the coasts of Trinidad and sailed up the Orinoco, and in 1596 took part with Charles Howard and Essex in the sack of Cadiz. In 1600 he became Governor of Jersey and, in three years, did much to promote the island’s trade.

Raleigh was imprisoned in 1603 by James I on a charge of conspiracy. He spent his time in the Tower of London studying, writing, and carrying out chemical experiments. He was released in 1616 to lead an expedition in search of El Dorado but was beheaded at Whitehall on the original charge when he returned empty-handed.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Walter Raleigh

On death and judgment, heaven and hell, who oft doth think, must needs die well.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Death

I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks; And when I’m introduced to one I wish I thought What Jolly Fun!
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Humanity, Humankind

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

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

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: Death, Dying

Men well governed should seek after no other liberty, for there can be no greater liberty than a good government.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Government

The world is but a large prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: World

But true love is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning,
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Love, Romance

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

Who so desireth to know what will be hereafter, let him think of what is past, for the world hath ever been in a circular revolution; whatsoever is now, was heretofore; and things past or present, are no other than such as shall be again: Redit orbis in orbem.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: The Past, Past

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

For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.
Walter Raleigh

Remember if you marry for beauty, thou bindest thyself all thy life for that which perchance, will neither last nor please thee one year: and when thou hast it, it will be to thee of no price at all.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Beauty

War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: War, Disorder

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

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

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

In a letter to a friend the thought is often unimportant, and the feeling, if it be only a desire to entertain him, everything.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Friendship

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: Life, Youth

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

Go, Soul, the body
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Soul

There is nothing more becoming any wise man, than to make choice of friends, for by them thou shalt be judged what thou art: let them therefore be wise and virtuous, and none of those that follow thee for gain; but make election rather of thy betters than thy inferiors, shunning always such as are poor and needy; for if thou givest twenty gifts, and refuse to do the like but once, all that thou hast done will be lost, and such men will become thy mortal enemies.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Friendship

No man is esteemed for colorful garments except by fools and women.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Dress, Fashion

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

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

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

A man must first govern himself, ere he be fit to govern a family; and his family, ere he be fit to bear the government in the commonwealth.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Self-Control, Government

Romance is a love affair in other than domestic surroundings.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Romance

He that hath pity on another man’s sorrow shall be free from it himself; and he that delighteth in, and scorneth the misery of another shall one time or other fall into it himself.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Sorrow

Hatreds are the cinders of affection.
Walter Raleigh
Topics: Hatred, Hate

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