Top 40 Horatio Nelson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “England expects that every man will do his duty.”

— Horatio Nelson

2. “I am of the opinion that the boldest measures are the safest.”

— Horatio Nelson

3. “Thank God I have done my duty.”

— Horatio Nelson

4. “It is my turn now; and if I come back, it is yours.”

— Horatio Nelson

5. “A fleet of British ships at war are the best negotiators.”

— Horatio Nelson

6. “I am a Norfolk man and Glory in being so.”

— Horatio Nelson

7. “Time is everything; five minutes make the difference between victory and defeat.”

— Horatio Nelson

8. “I owe all my success in life to having been always a quarter of an hour before my time.”

— Horatio Nelson

9. “The bravest man feels an anxiety ‘circa praecordia’ as he enters the battle; but he dreads disgrace yet more.”

— Horatio Nelson

10. “My greatest happiness is to serve my gracious King and Country and I am envious only of glory; for if it be a sin to covet glory I am the most offending soul alive.”

— Horatio Nelson

11. “Duty is the great business of a sea officer; all private considerations must give way to it, however painful it may be.”

— Horatio Nelson

12. “No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.”

— Horatio Nelson

13. “A ship’s a fool to fight a fort.”

— Horatio Nelson

14. “You must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your King, and you must treat every Frenchman as if he were the Devil himself.”

— Horatio Nelson

15. “In honour I gained them, and in honour I will die with them.”

— Horatio Nelson

16. “Thank God I have done my duty. Drink, drink. Fan, fan. Rub, rub. Kiss me, Hardy.”

— Horatio Nelson

17. “Gentlemen, when the enemy is committed to a mistake we must not interrupt him too soon.”

— Horatio Nelson

18. “My character and good name are in my own keeping. Life with disgrace is dreadful. A glorious death is to be envied.”

— Horatio Nelson

19. “I cannot command winds and weather.”

— Horatio Nelson

20. “In Sea affairs, nothing is impossible, and nothing is improbable.”

— Horatio Nelson

21. “I cannot, if I am in the field of glory, be kept out of sight: wherever there is anything to be done, there Providence is sure to direct my steps.”

— Horatio Nelson

22. “Let me alone: I have yet my legs and one arm. Tell the surgeon to make haste and his instruments. I know I must lose my right arm, so the sooner it’s off the better.”

— Horatio Nelson

23. “To do nothing was disgraceful; therefore I made use of my understanding.”

— Horatio Nelson

24. “If I had been censured every time I have run my ship, or fleets under my command, into great danger, I should have long ago been out of the Service and never in the House of Peers.”

— Horatio Nelson

25. “Something must be left to chance; nothing is certain in a sea fight.”

— Horatio Nelson

26. “Recollect that you must be a seaman to be an officer and also that you cannot be a good officer without being a gentleman.”

— Horatio Nelson

27. “Treat every Frenchman as if he was the devil himself.”

— Horatio Nelson

28. “Close with a Frenchman, but out-maneuver a Russian.”

— Horatio Nelson

29. “I could not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a saving sense of humor.”

— Horatio Nelson

30. “Desperate affairs require desperate measures.”

— Horatio Nelson

31. “Firstly you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own regarding their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly you must hate a Frenchman as you hate the devil.”

— Horatio Nelson

32. “What the country needs is the annihilation of the enemy.”

— Horatio Nelson

33. “My love is founded on esteem, the only foundation that can make the passion last.”

— Horatio Nelson

34. “First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can.”

— Horatio Nelson

35. “I am ill every time it blows hard, and nothing but my enthusiastic love for the profession keeps me one hour at sea.”

— Horatio Nelson

36. “Whoever gains the palm by merit, let him hold it.”

— Horatio Nelson

37. “I have a right to be blind sometimes.”

— Horatio Nelson

38. “Laurels grow in the Bay of Biscay, I hope a bed of them may be found in the Mediterranean.”

— Horatio Nelson

39. “Frigates are the eyes of a fleet.”

— Horatio Nelson

40. “Now I can do no more. We must trust to the Great Disposer of all events and the justice of our cause. I thank God for this opportunity of doing my duty.”

— Horatio Nelson

41. “I will dine nowhere without your consent although with my present feelings I might be trusted with fifty virgins naked in a dark room.”

— Horatio Nelson

42. “Buonaparte has often made his boast that our fleet would be worn out by keeping the sea and that his was kept in order and increasing by staying in port; but know he finds, I fancy, if Emperors hear the truth, that his fleet suffers more in a night than ours in one year.”

— Horatio Nelson

43. “The politics of courts are so mean that private people would be ashamed to act in the same way; all is trick and finesse, to which the common cause is sacrificed.”

— Horatio Nelson

44. “Never break the neutrality of a port or place, but never consider as neutral any place from whence an attack is allowed to be made.”

— Horatio Nelson

45. “There can be no place for self entirely.”

— Horatio Nelson

46. “If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting.”

— Horatio Nelson

47. “Our country will, I believe, sooner forgive an officer for attacking an enemy than for letting it alone.”

— Horatio Nelson

48. “Had we taken ten sails, and let the eleventh to escape, being able to get at her, I could never have called it well done.”

— Horatio Nelson