Top 90 Walter Raleigh Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Prevention is the daughter of intelligence.”

— Walter Raleigh

2. “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

3. “It is not truth, but opinion that can travel the world without a passport.”

— Walter Raleigh

4. “But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust.”

— Walter Raleigh

5. “God is absolutely good; and so, assuredly, the cause of all that is good.”

— Walter Raleigh

6. “The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy’s spring, but sorrow’s fall.”

— Walter Raleigh

7. “This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases and miseries.”

— Walter Raleigh

8. “But true love is a durable fire, In the mind ever burning, Never sick, never old, never dead, From itself never turning.”

— Walter Raleigh

9. “Youth is the opportunity to do something and to be somebody.”

— Walter Raleigh

10. “All men are evil and will declare themselves to be so when occasion is offered.”

— Walter Raleigh

11. “A wandering minstrel I A thing of shreds and patches Of ballads, songs and snatches And dreamy lullaby!”

— Walter Raleigh

12. “I wish I loved the Human Race; I wish I loved its silly face; I wish I liked the way it walks; I wish I liked the way it talks; And when I’m introduced to one I wish I thought What Jolly Fun!”

— Walter Raleigh

13. “Give my scallop-shell of quiet, My staff of faith to walk upon, My scrip of joy, immortal diet, My bottle of salvation, My gown of glory, hope’s true gage; And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.”

— Walter Raleigh

14. “I am the monarch of the sea, The Ruler of the Queen’s Navee, Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants And we are his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!”

— Walter Raleigh

15. “There is nothing exempt from the peril of mutation; the earth, heavens, and whole world is thereunto subject.”

— Walter Raleigh

16. “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

17. “Better it were not to live than to live a coward.”

— Walter Raleigh

18. “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

19. “The most divine light only shineth on those minds which are purged from all worldly dross and human uncleanliness.”

— Walter Raleigh

20. “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

21. “Use your youth so that you may have comfort to remember it when it has forsaken you, and not sigh and grieve at the account thereof.”

— Walter Raleigh

22. “Talking much is a sign of vanity, for the one who is lavish with words is cheap in deeds.”

— Walter Raleigh

23. “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.”

— Walter Raleigh

24. “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

25. “So the heart be right, it is no matter which way the head lieth.”

— Walter Raleigh

26. “Whosoever in writing a modern history shall follow the truth too near the heels it may haply strike out his teeth.”

— Walter Raleigh

27. “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

28. “Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.”

— Walter Raleigh

29. “The world is but a large prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution.”

— Walter Raleigh

30. “The first draught serveth for health, the second for pleasure, the third for shame, the fourth for madness.”

— Walter Raleigh

31. “No mortal thing can bear so high a price, But that with mortal thing it may be bought.”

— Walter Raleigh

32. “Expressive glances Shall be our lances And pops of Sillery Our light artillery.”

— Walter Raleigh

33. “Even such isTime, which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have, And pays us but with age and dust, Who in the dark and silent grave When we have wandered all our ways Shuts up the story of our days, And from which earth, and grave, and dust The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.”

— Walter Raleigh

34. “Silence in love betrays more woe – Than words though ne’er so witty; A beggar that is dumb, you know, may challenge double pity.”

— Walter Raleigh

35. “Corrupt seeds bring forth corrupt plants.”

— Walter Raleigh

36. “To live thy better, let thy worst thoughts die.”

— Walter Raleigh

37. “Passions are likened best to floods and streams: The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.”

— Walter Raleigh

38. “The useful type of successful teacher is one whose main interest is the children, not the subject.”

— Walter Raleigh

39. “I can’t write a book commensurate with Shakespeare, but I can write a book by me.”

— Walter Raleigh

40. “When a felon’s not engaged in his employment Or maturing his felonious little plans His capacity for innocent enjoyment Is just as great as any honest man’s Ah! When constabulary duty’s to be done A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.”

— Walter Raleigh

41. “Covetous ambition, thinking all too little which presently it hath, supposeth itself to stand in need of that which it hath not.”

— Walter Raleigh

42. “Our souls, piercing through the impurity of flesh, behold the highest heaven, and thence bring knowledge to contemplate the ever-during, glory and termless joy.”

— Walter Raleigh

43. “It is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King.”

— Walter Raleigh

44. “Men endure the losses that befall them by mere casualty with more patience than the damages they sustain by injustice.”

— Walter Raleigh

45. “Never spend anything before thou have it; for borrowing is the canker and death of every man’s estate.”

— Walter Raleigh

46. “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

47. “War begets quiet, quiet idleness, idleness disorder, disorder ruin; likewise ruin order, order virtue, virtue glory, and good fortune.”

— Walter Raleigh

48. “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

49. “If thy friends be of better quality than thyself, thou mayest be sure of two things; 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

50. “Trust few men; above all, keep your follies to yourself.”

— Walter Raleigh