“I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“The past can not be cured.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and single, far rather than queen and married.”
― Elizabeth I
“I observe and remain silent.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“I will have but one mistress and no master”
― queen Elizabeth I
“And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“I may not be a lion,but I am lions cub and I have lion’s heart”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“Men fight wars. Women win them.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“I grieve and dare not show my discontent,
I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant,
I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.
I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,
Since from myself another self I turned.
My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.”
― Elizabeth I
“This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“Life is for living and working at. If you find anything or anybody a bore, the fault is in yourself.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“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.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“God forgive you, but I never can.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“As for my own part I care not for death, for all men are mortal; and though I be a woman yet I have as good a courage answerable to my place as ever my father had. I am your anointed Queen. I will never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am indeed endowed 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
“[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
“There is no marvel in a woman learning to speak, but there would be in teaching her to hold her tongue”
― Elizabeth I
“I see, and say nothing.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“Much suspected by me, Nothing proved can be”
― Elizabeth I
“Semper eadem”, always the same…”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“I have the heart of a man, not a woman, and I am not afraid of anything.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“[F]rom my years of understanding … I happily chose this kind of life in which I yet live [i.e., unmarried], which I assure you for my own part hath hitherto best contented myself and I trust hath been most acceptable to God. From the which if either ambition of high estate offered to me in marriage by the pleasure and appointment of my prince … or if the eschewing of the danger of my enemies or the avoiding of the peril of death … could have drawn or dissuaded me from this kind of life, I had not now remained in this estate wherein you see me. But so constant have I always continued in this determination … yet is it most true that at this day I stand free from any other meaning that either I have had in times past or have at this present.”
― Elizabeth I
“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.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“There is only one Christ, Jesus, one faith. All else is a dispute over trifles.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“All my possessions for a moment of time.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“(Response to King Erik XIV of Sweden’s proposal of marriage:)
“[W]hile we perceive … the zeal and love of your mind towards us is not diminished, yet in part we are grieved that we cannot gratify your Serene Highness with the same kind of affection. And that indeed does not happen because we doubt in any way of your love and honour, but, as often we have testified both in words and writing, that we have never yet conceived a feeling of that kind of affection towards anyone.
We therefore beg your Serene Highness again and again that you be pleased to set a limit to your love, that it advance not beyond the laws of friendship for the present nor disregard them in the future. …
We certainly think that if God ever direct our hearts to consideration of marriage we shall never accept or choose any absent husband how powerful and wealthy a Prince soever. But that we are not to give you an answer until we have seen your person is so far from the thing itself that we never even considered such a thing. I have always given both to your brother … and also to your ambassador likewise the same answer with scarcely any variation of the words, that we do not conceive in our heart to take a husband but highly commend this single life, and hope that your Serene Highness will no longer spend time in waiting for us.”
― Elizabeth I
“It is hard to find beauty in the art of self expression.”
― Elizabeth I
“Grief is the price we pay for love.”
― Queen Elizabeth
“My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it,
Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.”
― Elizabeth I
“[I]f I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom.”
― Elizabeth I
“If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“The past cannot be cured.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“If we still advise we shall never do.”
― Elizabeth I
“A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head.”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“A clear and innocent conscience fears nothing”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“I give you this charge, that you shall be of my Privy Council and content yourself to take pains for me and my realm. This judgement I have of you, that you will not be corrupted with any manner of gift and that you will be faithful to the State, and that without respect of my private will, you will give me that counsel that you think best: and, if you shall know anything necessary to be declared to me of secrecy, you shall show it to myself only and assure yourself I will not fail to keep taciturnity therein. And therefore herewith I charge you.
Administering the oath of office to William Cecil as Secretary of State, November 20, 1558, as quoted in Elizabeth I: The Word of a Prince, A Life from Contemporary Documents, by Maria Perry, Chapter V, Section: To make a good account to Almighty God”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“I would not have my sheep branded with any other mark than my own, or follow the whistle of a strange shepherd.”
― Elizabeth I
“Anger will make a dull man witty, but very little money.”
― Elizabeth I
“For I am soft and made of melting snow;”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“For it is monstrous that the feet should direct the head.”
― Elizabeth I
“I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“I have no desire to make windows into men’s souls.”
― Elizabeth I
“Semper eadem”
― Elizabeth I
“If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all”
― Queen Elizabeth I
“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
“I have no desire to make windows into mens souls.”
― Elizabeth I
“Where minds differ and opinions swerve there is scant a friend in that company.”
― Elizabeth I
“Sir Walter Raleigh, said to have written on a window with a diamond to Queen Elizabeth: “Fain would I climb, but yet fear I to fall.”
Queen Elizabeth: “If thy heart fail thee, then climb not at all.”
― Elizabeth I