Top 100 Elizabeth I Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “I do not want a husband who honours me as a queen, if he does not love me as a woman.”

— Elizabeth I

52. “It is monstrous that the feet should direct the head.”

— Elizabeth I

53. “The doubt of future foes exiles my present joy.”

— Elizabeth I

54. “Much suspected by me, Nothing proved can be.”

— Elizabeth I

55. “Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.”

— Elizabeth I

56. “If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.”

— Elizabeth I

57. “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

58. “Words are leaves, the substance consists of deeds, which are the true fruits of a good tree.”

— Elizabeth I

59. “The name of a successor is like the tolling of my own death-bell!”

— Elizabeth I

60. “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

61. “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

62. “If there were two princes in Christendom who had good will and courage, it would be very easy to reconcile the religious difficulties; there is only one Jesus Christ and one faith, and all the rest is a dispute over trifles.”

— Elizabeth I

63. “I thank God I am endued with such qualities that if I were turned out of the Realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom.”

— Elizabeth I

64. “Monarchs ought to put to death the authors and instigators of war, as their sworn enemies and as dangers to their states.”

— Elizabeth I

65. “I will be as good unto ye as ever a Queen was unto her people. No will in me can lack, neither do I trust shall there lack any power. And persuade yourselves that for the safety and quietness of you all I will not spare if need be to spend my blood.”

— Elizabeth I

66. “I will have but one mistress and no master.”

— Elizabeth I

67. “My seat has been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed me.”

— Elizabeth I

68. “A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head.”

— Elizabeth I

69. “Where minds differ and opinions swerve there is scant a friend in that company.”

— Elizabeth I

70. “I pray to God that I shall not live one hour after I have thought of using deception.”

— Elizabeth I

71. “I don’t keep a dog and bark myself.”

— Elizabeth I

72. “Princes have big ears which hear far and near.”

— Elizabeth I

73. “The end crowneth the work.”

— Elizabeth I

74. “Although my royal rank causes me to doubt whether my kingdom is not more sought after than myself, yet I understand that you havefound other graces in me.”

— Elizabeth I

75. “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

76. “There is one thing higher than Royalty: and that is religion, which causes us to leave the world, and seek God.”

— Elizabeth I

77. “It has been always held for a special principle in friendship that prosperity provideth but adversity proveth friends...”

— Elizabeth I

78. “O Fortune, how thy restless, wavering state has fraught with cares my troubled wit!”

— Elizabeth I

79. “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

80. “I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me to be a Queen, as to be a Queen over so thankful a people.”

— Elizabeth I

81. “He who placed me in this seat will keep me here.”

— Elizabeth I

82. “No foteball player be used or suffered within the City of London and the liberties thereof upon pain of imprisonment.”

— Elizabeth I

83. “The true sin against the Holy Ghost is ingratitude.”

— Elizabeth I

84. “I am more afraid of making a fault in my Latin than of the Kings of Spain, France, Scotland, the whole House of Guise, and all of their confederates.”

— Elizabeth I

85. “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

86. “I regret the unhappiness of princes who are slaves to forms and fettered by caution.”

— Elizabeth I

87. “Affection! Affection is false.”

— Elizabeth I

88. “If we still advise we shall never do.”

— Elizabeth I

89. “Prosperity provideth, but adversity proveth friends.”

— Elizabeth I

90. “I shall lend credit to nothing against my people which parents would not believe against their own children.”

— Elizabeth I

91. “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

92. “It is good to jest, but not to make a trade of jesting.”

— Elizabeth I

93. “Mr. Doctor, that loose gown becomes you so well I wonder your notions should be so narrow.”

— Elizabeth I

94. “I will never be by violence constrained to do anything.”

— Elizabeth I

95. “There is nothing in the world I hold in greater horror than to see a body moving against its head: and I shall be very careful notto ally myself with such a monster.”

— Elizabeth I

96. “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

97. “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

98. “Be of good cheer, for you will never want, for the bullet was meant for me, though it hit you.”

— Elizabeth I

99. “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

100. “Where might is mixed with wit, there is too good an accord in a government.”

— Elizabeth I