Elizabeth I Quotes

#1. One man with a head on his shoulders is worth a dozen without.

Elizabeth I

#2. No foteball player be used or suffered within the City of London and the liberties thereof upon pain of imprisonment.

Elizabeth I

#3. Let the good service of well-deservers be never rewarded with loss. Let their thanks be such as may encourage more strivers for the like.

Elizabeth I

#4. Affection! Affection is false.

Elizabeth I

#5. A good face is the best letter of recommendation.

Elizabeth I

#6. I may not be a lion,but I am lions cub and I have lion's heart

Elizabeth I

#7. I plucke up the goodlie greene herbes of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, chawe them by musing, and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together; that I, having tasted the sweetenes, l may the lesse perceave the bitternes of this miserable life.

Elizabeth I

#8. [To Parliament, when it urged her to marry and settle the succession:] You attend to your own duties and I'll perform mine.

Elizabeth I

#9. To be a king and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it is pleasant to them that bear it.

Elizabeth I

#10. The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy.

Elizabeth I

#11. He that will forget God, will also forget his benefactors.

Elizabeth I

#12. [On Thomas Seymour's death:] This day died a man of much wit and very little judgment.

Elizabeth I

#13. The word must is not to be used to princes.

Elizabeth I

#14. A meal of bread, cheese and beer constitutes the perfect food.

Elizabeth I

#15. The name of a successor is like the tolling of my own death-bell!

Elizabeth I

#16. Chastity is the ermine of woman's soul.

Elizabeth I

#17. He who placed me in this seat will keep me here.

Elizabeth I

#18. The sea, as well as the air, is a free and common thing to all; and a particular nation cannot pretend to have the right to the exclusion of all others, without violating the rights of nature and public usage.

Elizabeth I

#19. [I]n the end this shall be for me sufficient, that a marble stone shall declare that a Queen, having reigned such a time, lived and died a virgin.

Elizabeth I

#20. There is small disproportion betwixt a fool who useth not wit because he hath it not and him that useth it not when it should avail him.

Elizabeth I

#21. [When opposed by leaders of her Council:] I will make you shorter by the head!

Elizabeth I

#22. A clear and innocent conscience fears nothing

Elizabeth I

#23. I would not open windows into men's souls.

Elizabeth I

#24. I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married.

Elizabeth I

#25. [To Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, on his return from self-imposed exile, occasioned by the embarrassing flatulence he had experienced in the presence of the Queen:] My Lord, I had forgot the fart.

Elizabeth I

#26. If I should say the sweetest speech with the eloquentest tongue that ever was in man, I were not able to express that restless care which I have ever bent to govern for the greatest wealth.

Elizabeth I

#27. I have seen many a man turn his gold into smoke, but you are the first who has turned smoke into gold.

Elizabeth I

#28. Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my crown: That I have reigned with your loves.

Elizabeth I

#29. Where minds differ and opinions swerve there is scant a friend in that company.

Elizabeth I

#30. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything.

Elizabeth I

#31. I have no desire to make windows into mens souls.

Elizabeth I

#32. If we still advise we shall never do.

Elizabeth I

#33. Princes have big ears which hear far and near.

Elizabeth I

#34. Prosperity provideth, but adversity proveth friends.

Elizabeth I

#35. I would rather go to any extreme than suffer anything that is unworthy of my reputation, or of that of my crown.

Elizabeth I

#36. I have already joined myself in marriage to a husband, namely the kingdom of England.

Elizabeth I

#37. Proud Prelate, you know what you were before I made you what you are. If you do not immediately comply with my request I will unfrock you by God!

Elizabeth I

#38. The stone often recoils on the head of the thrower.

Elizabeth I

#39. O Fortune, how thy restless, wavering state has fraught with cares my troubled wit!

Elizabeth I

#40. I observe and remain silent.

Elizabeth I

#41. I will have but one mistress and no master

Elizabeth I

#42. I pluck up the good lissome herbs of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, digest them by musing, and lay them up at length in the high seat of memory.

Elizabeth I

#43. Men fight wars. Women win them.

Elizabeth I

#44. Answer on being asked her opinion of Christ's presence in the Sacrament. 'Twas God the word that spake it, He took the Bread and brake it; And what the word did make it That I believe, and take it.

Elizabeth I

#45. Ye may have a greater prince, but ye shall never have a more loving prince.

Elizabeth I

#46. [On being told Mary, Queen of Scots, was taller than she:] Then she is too high, for I myself am neither too high nor too low.

Elizabeth I

#47. When we hang on to resentments, we poison ourselves. As compulsive overeaters, we cannot afford resentment, since it exacerbates our disease.

Elizabeth I

#48. The end crowneth the work.

Elizabeth I

#49. My mortal foe can no ways wish me a greater harm than England's hate; neither should death be less welcome unto me than such a mishap betide me.

Elizabeth I

#50. The true sin against the Holy Ghost is ingratitude.

Elizabeth I

#51. There is only one Christ, Jesus, one faith. All else is a dispute over trifles.

Elizabeth I

#52. I do not want a husband who honours me as a queen, if he does not love me as a woman.

Elizabeth I

#53. I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king

Elizabeth I

#54. I don't keep a dog and bark myself.

Elizabeth I

#55. Young heads take example of the ancient

Elizabeth I

#56. Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects.

Elizabeth I

#57. Semper eadem", always the same...

Elizabeth I

#58. Where might is mixed with wit, there is too good an accord in a government.

Elizabeth I

#59. The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof.

Elizabeth I

#60. I do not choose that my grave should be dug while I am still alive.

Elizabeth I

#61. Those who appear the most sanctified are the worst.

Elizabeth I

#62. It is good to jest, but not to make a trade of jesting.

Elizabeth I

#63. My seat has been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed me.

Elizabeth I

#64. Much suspected by me, Nothing proved can be

Elizabeth I

#65. Mr. Doctor, that loose gown becomes you so well I wonder your notions should be so narrow.

Elizabeth I

#66. A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head.

Elizabeth I

#67. Brass shines as fair to the ignorant as gold to the goldsmiths.

Elizabeth I

#68. Though the sex to which I belong is considered weak you will nevertheless find me a rock that bends to no wind.

Elizabeth I

#69. If our web be framed with rotten handles, when our loom is well nigh done, our work is new to begin. God send the weaver true prentices again, and let them be denizens.

Elizabeth I

#70. This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Elizabeth I

#71. I have the heart of a man, not a woman, and I am not afraid of anything.

Elizabeth I

#72. I have never been able to be so allured by the prospect of advantages or so terrified by misfortunes, swayed by honours or fettered by affection, nay not even so smitten by the fear of death, as to enter upon marriage.

Elizabeth I

#73. I am no lover of pompous title, but only desire that my name may be recorded in a line or two, which shall briefly express my name, my virginity, the years of my reign, the reformation of religion under it, and my preservation of peace.

Elizabeth I

#74. When I was fair and young, and favor graced me,
Of many was I sought, their mistress for to be;
But I did scorn them all, and answered them therefore,
Go, go, go seek some otherwhere!
Importune me no more!

Elizabeth I

#75. The past can not be cured.

Elizabeth I

#76. I pray to God that I shall not live one hour after I have thought of using deception.

Elizabeth I

#77. God has given such brave soldiers to this Crown that, if they do not frighten our neighbours, at least they prevent us from being frightened by them.

Elizabeth I

#78. I would gladly chastise those who represent things as different from what they are. Those who steal property or make counterfeit money are punished, and those ought to be still more severely dealt with who steal away or falsify the good name of a prince.

Elizabeth I

#79. As for me, I see no such great cause why I should either be fond to live or fear to die. I have had good experience of this world, and I know what it is to be a subject and what to be a sovereign. Good neighbours I have had, and I have met with bad: and in trust I have found treason.

Elizabeth I

#80. Be always faithful to me, as I always desire to keep you in peace; and if there have been wiser kings, none has ever loved you more than I have.

Elizabeth I

#81. I shall lend credit to nothing against my people which parents would not believe against their own children.

Elizabeth I

#82. If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.

Elizabeth I

#83. Life is for living and working at. If you find anything or anybody a bore, the fault is in yourself.

Elizabeth I

#84. Be of good cheer, for you will never want, for the bullet was meant for me, though it hit you.

Elizabeth I

#85. Who seeketh two strings to one bow, they may shoot strong, but never straight ...

Elizabeth I

#86. Kings were wont to honour philosophers, but if I had such I would honour them as angels that should have such piety in them that they would not seek where they are the second to be the first, and where the third to be the second and so forth.

Elizabeth I

#87. If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and single, far rather than queen and married.

Elizabeth I

#88. Of myself I must say this, I never was any greedy, scraping grasper, nor a strait fast-holding prince, nor yet a master; my heart was never set on worldly goods, but only for my subjects' good.

Elizabeth I

#89. Had I been crested, not cloven, my Lords, you had not treated me thus.

Elizabeth I

#90. Must! Is must a word to be addressed to princes? Little man, little man! Thy father, if he had been alive, durst not have used that word.

Elizabeth I

#91. I regret the unhappiness of princes who are slaves to forms and fettered by caution.

Elizabeth I

#92. Anger will make a dull man witty, but very little money.

Elizabeth I

#93. I would not have my sheep branded with any other mark than my own, or follow the whistle of a strange shepherd.

Elizabeth I

#94. [ellipsis in source] it is true that the world was made in six days, but it was by God, to whose power the infirmity of men isnot to be compared.

Elizabeth I

#95. There is no marvel in a woman learning to speak, but there would be in teaching her to hold her tongue

Elizabeth I

#96. Grief never ends, but it changes. It is a passage, not a place to stay. Grief is not a sign of weakness nor a lack of faith: it is the price of love.

Elizabeth I

#97. Fear not, we are of the nature of the lion, and cannot descend to the destruction of mice and such small beasts.

Elizabeth I

#98. It is hard to find beauty in the art of self expression.

Elizabeth I

#99. It is a natural virtue incident to our sex to be pitiful of those that are afflicted.

Elizabeth I

#100. Words are leaves, the substance consists of deeds, which are the true fruits of a good tree.

Elizabeth I