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
Speaking much is a sign of vanity, for he that is lavish in words is a niggard in deed.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Talking
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
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
Talking much is a sign of vanity, for the one who is lavish with words is cheap in deeds.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Goodness, Good Deeds, Deeds
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
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
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
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
If thou be subject to any great vanity or ill, then therein trust no man; for every man’s folly ought to be his greatest secret.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Trust
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
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
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
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
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
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
Men well governed should seek after no other liberty, for there can be no greater liberty than a good government.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Government
Romance is a love affair in other than domestic surroundings.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Romance
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
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
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
No man is esteemed for gay garments, but by fools and women.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Dress
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
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
On death and judgment, heaven and hell, who oft doth think, must needs die well.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Death
The world is but a large prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: World
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
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
Hatreds are the cinders of affection.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Hate, Hatred
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 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
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
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
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 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
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
Go, Soul, the body
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Soul
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
There is nothing exempt from the peril of mutation; the earth, heavens, and whole world is thereunto subject.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Change
The engine is the heart of an airplane, but the pilot is its soul.
—Walter Raleigh
Topics: Flying
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
John Eliot American Psychologist
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford English Poet, Courtier
Francis Drake English Military Leader
Anthony Hopkins Welsh-American Actor
B. H. Liddell Hart English Military Journalist, Historian
Arthur Wing Pinero English Playwright
Arthur Eddington English Astronomer
Herbert Beerbohm Tree English Actor-Manager
Richard Eyre British Director
Philip James Bailey English Poet