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
The gain of lying is nothing else but not to be trusted of any, nor to be believed when we say the truth.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Lying
Romance is a love affair in other than domestic surroundings.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Romance
I can’t write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Awareness, Expectations, Realistic Expectations, Acceptance, Realization
The world is but a large prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: World
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
The practices of war are so hateful to God, that were not his mercies infinite, it were in vain for those of that profession to hope for any portion of them.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: War
Men endure the losses that befall them by mere casualty with more patience than the damages they sustain by injustice.
—Walter Raleigh
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
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
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
No one is wise or safe, but they that are honest.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Honesty
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
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
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
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
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
Men well governed should seek after no other liberty, for there can be no greater liberty than a good government.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Government
War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Disorder, War
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
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
Better were it to be unborn than to be ill bred.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Manners
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
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! 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 colorful garments except by fools and women.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Fashion, Dress
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
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
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
Speaking much is a sign of vanity, for he that is lavish in words is a niggard in deed.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Talking
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