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
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: Government, Self-Control
The engine is the heart of an airplane, but the pilot is its soul.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Flying
Hatreds are the cinders of affection.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Hate, Hatred
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
According to Solomon, life and death are in the power of the tongue; and as Euripides truly affirmeth, every unbridled tongue in the end shall find itself unfortunate; in all that ever I observed I ever found that men’s fortunes are oftener made by their tongues than by their virtues, and more men’s fortunes overthrown thereby, also, than by their vices.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Speech
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
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
Except thou desire to hasten thine end, take this for a general rule, that thou never add any artificial heat to thy body by wine or spice, until thou find that time hath decayed thy natural heat; and the sooner thou beginnest to help Nature, the sooner she will forsake thee, and leave thee to trust altogether to Art.
—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
Romance is a love affair in other than domestic surroundings.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Romance
Flatterers are the worst kind of traitors for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, correct thee in nothing, but so shadow and paint all thy vices and follies as thou shalt never, by their will, discern good from evil, or vice from virtue.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Flattery
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 histories do show, 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.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Evil
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 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
Men endure the losses that befall them by mere casualty with more patience than the damages they sustain by injustice.
—Walter Raleigh
No man is esteemed for colorful garments except by fools and women.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Fashion, Dress
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
The difference between a rich man and a poor man, is this—the former eats when he pleases, and the latter when he can get it.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Eating
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
Men well governed should seek after no other liberty, for there can be no greater liberty than a good government.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Government
O! reputation, dearer far than life, thou precious balsam, lovely, sweet of smell, whose cordial drops once spilt by some rash hand, not all thy owner’s care, nor the repenting toil of the rude spiller, ever can collect to its first purity and native sweetness.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Reputation
No man is esteemed for gay garments, but by fools and women.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Dress
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
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: Romance, Love
Remember, that if thou 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; for the desire dieth when it is attained, and the affection perisheth when it is satisfied.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Marriage
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
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 one is wise or safe, but they that are honest.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Honesty
Talking much is a sign of vanity, for the one who is lavish with words is cheap in deeds.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Good Deeds, Goodness, Deeds
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