Sir Walter Raleigh Quotes

Will read a poem by Sir Walter Raleigh at his grandmother's funeral.

"Pondering the joys we had, listen & keep very still. If the lowing from the hill or the tolling of the bell do not
serve to break the spell, listen: you may be allowed to hear my laughter from a cloud. ~ Lynne Branard

Even such is Time *
Even such is Time, that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.
Sir Walter Raleigh (1554-1618)
*These lines are said to have been composed by Sir Walter Raleigh on the night before his execution. ~ Walter Raleigh

I have provided a possible explanation for Antiochus's insane foolhardiness when left in command of the Athenian Fleet, because Thucidides's bald account is so unbelievable (unless one assumes that both Antiochus and Alkibiades were mentally defective) that any explanation seems more likely than none.
Alkibiades himself is an enigma. Even allowing that no man is all black and all white, few men can ever have been more wildly and magnificently piebald. Like another strange and contradictory character Sir Walter Raleigh, he casts a glamour that comes clean down the centuries, a dazzle of personal magnetism that makes it hard to see the man behind it. I have tried to see. I have tried to fit the pieces into a coherent whole; I don't know whether I have been successful or not; but I do not think that I have anywhere falsified the portrait. ~ Rosemary Sutcliff

Potatoes came to Europe from the New World in the early sixteenth century. Sir Francis Drake is thought to have introduced the potato to England, and shortly afterward Sir Walter Raleigh tried planting them on his Irish estates. When ~ Ryan Hackney

Sir Walter Raleigh once remarked, "the art of magic is the art of worshipping God. ~ Jason Louv

SHAKESPEARE

What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more

(Hamlet)

There is no one kind of Shakespearean hero, although in many ways Hamlet is the epitome of the Renaissance tragic hero, who reaches his perfection only to die. In Shakespeare's early plays, his heroes are mainly historical figures, kings of England, as he traces some of the historical background to the nation's glory. But character and motive are more vital to his work than praise for the dynasty, and Shakespeare's range expands considerably during the 1590s, as he and his company became the stars of London theatre. Although he never went to university, as Marlowe and Kyd had done, Shakespeare had a wider range of reference and allusion, theme and content than any of his contemporaries. His plays, written for performance rather than publication, were not only highly successful as entertainment, they were also at the cutting edge of the debate on a great many of the moral and philosophical issues of the time.

Shakespeare's earliest concern was with kingship and history, with how 'this sceptr'd isle' came to its present glory. As his career progressed, the horizons of the world widened, and his explorations encompassed the geography of the human soul, just as the voyages of such travellers as Richard Hakluyt, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Francis Drake expanded the horizons of the real world. ~ Ronald Carter

The War of the Roses in England and the Civil War in America were both intestinal conflicts arising out of similar ideas. In the first the clash was between feudalism and the new economic order; in the second, between an agricultural society and a new industrial one. Both led to similar ends; the first to the founding of the English nation, and the second to the founding of the American. Both were strangely interlinked; for it was men of the old military and not of the new economic mind
men, such as Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh
who founded the English colonies in America. ~ J. F. C. Fuller

What is our life? A play of passion.
Our mirth the music of division.
Our mother's wombs the tyring houses be,
Where we are drest for this short Comedy.
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
That sits and marks still who doth act amiss,
Our graves that hide us from the searching sun,
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus march we playing to our latest rest,
Only we die in earnest, that's no jest. ~ Walter Raleigh

Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall. ~ Walter Raleigh

Samuel Smiles ends his book with the following moving story of the "gentleman" general:

The gentleman is characterized by his sacrifice of self, and preference of others, in the little daily occurrences of life…we may cite the anecdote of the gallant Sir Ralph Abercromby, of whom it is related, that, when mortally wounded in the battle of Aboukir, and, to ease his pain, a soldier's blanket was placed under his head, from which he experienced considerable relief.
He asked what it was.
"It's only a soldier's blanket," was the reply.
"Whose blanket is it?" said he, half lifting himself up.
"Only one of the men's."
"I wish to know the name of the man whose blanket this is."
"It is Duncan Roy's, of the 42nd, Sir Ralph."
"Then see that Duncan Roy gets his blanket this very night."

Even to ease his dying agony the general would not deprive the private soldier of his blanket for one night.
As Samuel wrote: "True courage and gentleness go hand in hand."
It was in this family, belief system, and heritage that Walter, my great-grandfather, grew up and dared to dream. ~ Bear Grylls

Prevention is the daughter of intelligence. ~ 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

Hatreds are the cinders of affection. ~ Walter Raleigh

I can't write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me. ~ Walter Raleigh

Less pains in the world a man cannot take than to bold his tongue. ~ Walter Raleigh

Sir Walter, with his 61 years of life, although he never wrote a novel until he was over 40, had, fortunately for the world, a longer working career than most of his brethren. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

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

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. ~ Walter Raleigh

There is no error which hath not some appearance of probability resembling truth, which, when men who study to be singular find out, straining reason, they then publish to the world matter of contention and jangling. ~ Walter Raleigh

Whoso desireth to govern well and securely, it behoveth him to have a vigilant eye to the proceedings of great princes, and to consider seriously of their designs. ~ Walter Raleigh

To live thy better, let thy worst thoughts die. ~ Walter Raleigh

Whoever 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

I never saw quite so wretched an example of what a sea-faring life can do: but to a degree, I know it is the same with them all; they are all knocked about, and exposed to every climate, and every weather, till they are not fit to be seen. It is a pity they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach Admiral Baldwin's age. ~ Jane Austen

Eva knows I'm terra incognita and explores me unhurriedly, like you did. Because she's lean as a boy. Because her scent is almonds, meadow grass. Because if I smile at her ambition to be an Egyptologist, she kicks my shin under the table. Because she makes me think about something other than myself. Because even when serious she shines. Because she prefers travelogues to Sir Walter Scott, prefers Billy Mayerl to Mozart, and couldn't tell a C major from a sergeant major. Because I, only I, see her smile a fraction before it reaches her face. Because Emperor Robert is not a good man - his best part is commandeered by his unperformed music - but she gives me that rarest smile, anyway. Because we listened to nightjars. Because her laughter spurts through a blowhole in the top of her head and sprays all over the morning. Because a man like me has no business with this substance "beauty," yet here she is, in these soundproof chambers of my heart. ~ David Mitchell

With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his ... It would positively be a relief to me to dig him up and throw stones at him. ~ George Bernard Shaw

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 hast 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! (Here lies) ~ Walter Raleigh

Our bodies are but the anvils of pain and disease and our minds the hives of unnumbered cares. ~ 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. ~ Walter Raleigh

Sir Everard had never been himself a student, and, like his sister Miss Rachael Waverley, held the vulgar doctrine, that idleness is incompatible with reading of any kind, and that the mere tracing the alphabetical characters with the eye, is in itself a useful and meritorious task, without scrupulously considering what ideas or doctrines they may happen to convey. With ~ Walter Scott

A professional man of letters, especially if he is much at war with unscrupulous enenemies, is naturally jealous of his privacy ... so it was, I think, with Dryden. ~ Walter Raleigh

But there stands the sword of my ancestor Sir Richard Vernon, slain at Shrewsbury, and sorely slandered by a sad fellow called Will Shakspeare, whose Lancastrian partialities, and a certain knack at embodying them, has turned history upside down, or rather inside out. ~ Walter Scott

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

In a letter to a friend the thought is often unimportant, and the feeling, if it be only a desire to entertain him, every thing. ~ Walter Raleigh

The most divine light only shineth on those minds which are purged from all worldly dross and human uncleanliness. ~ Walter Raleigh

But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust. ~ Walter Raleigh

Look back, and smile on perils past. ~ Sir Walter Scott

PASSIONS are likened best to floods and streams:
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb; ~ Walter Raleigh

The best time for marriage will be towards thirty, for as the younger times are unfit, either to choose or to govern a wife and family, so, if thou stay long, thou shalt hardly see the education of thy children, who, being left to strangers, are in effect lost; and better were it to be unborn than ill-bred; for thereby thy posterity shall either perish, or remain a shame to thy name. ~ Walter Raleigh

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

This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases and miseries. ~ Walter Raleigh

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

So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lieth. ~ Walter Raleigh

No one can take less pains than to hold his tongue. Hear 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

Expressive glances Shall be our lances And pops of Sillery Our light artillery. ~ Walter Raleigh

No sir, I'll live to write dozens more poems to read aloud to you." Mrs. Wiggins looked at him, and a big sob that was coming up in her throat, turned into a laugh, and she said: "That's what I'm afraid of. ~ Walter R. Brooks

I shall never be persuaded that God hath shut up all light of learning within the lantern of Aristotle's brain. ~ Walter Raleigh

There never was a man of solid understanding, whose apprehensions are sober, and by a pensive inspection advised, but that he hath found by an irresistible necessity one true God and everlasting being. ~ Walter Raleigh

Hath triumphed over time, which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over. ~ Walter Raleigh

All men are evil and will declare themselves to be so when occasion is offered. ~ Walter Raleigh

Better it were not to live than to live a coward. ~ Walter Raleigh

A man must first govern himself ere he is fit to govern a family; and his family ere he be fit to bear the government of the commonwealth. ~ Walter Raleigh