16th-century Politician Quotes

Francis Drake
Cardinal Richelieu
Mary I of England
William the Silent
Axel Oxenstierna
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
Sir Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

Cardinal Richelieu
Cardinal Richelieu
No man is bound to be rich or great, - no, nor to be wise; but every man is bound to be honest.

Dost thou not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed?

Axel Oxenstierna
Axel Oxenstierna
A Pack of Spanish Lies sent abroad in the world, first printed in the Spanish tongue, and translated out of the original. Now ripped up, unfolded and by just examination condemned, as containing false, corrupt and detestable wares worthy to be damned and burned.

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
Maistryefull merveylous and Archimastrye Is the tincture of holy Alkimy; A wonderful Science, secrete Philosophie, A singular grace and gifte of th' Almightie: Which never was found by labour of Mann, But it by Teaching, or by Revalacion begann.

Now Death his servant Sickness forth hath sent...

Our own tung shold be written cleane and pure, vnmixt and vnmangled with borrowing of other tunges.

John Cheke
John Cheke
Fair face show friends
When riches do abound:
Come time of proof,
Farewell, they must away.

Rest content, and give heed to one that hath sorrowed in the bright lustre of a court, and gone heavily even on the best-seeming fair ground…I know it bringeth little comfort on earth; and he is, I reckon, no wise man that looketh this way to Heaven.

Sir Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
Sir Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury
Thus your Lordship sees that we Papists want not Charity towards you Protestants, whatsoever the less understanding Part of the World think of us.

God will not let us fall...
For... our work is good,
We hope to plant a nation,
Where none before hath stood.

Thai half said. Quhat say thai? Let thame say.

If Virginia had but horses and kine in some reasonable proportion, I dare assure myself, being inhabited with English, no realm in Christendom were comparable to it.

When I am dead and opened, you shall find Calais lying in my heart.

Mary I of England
Mary I of England
Hence it is that old men do plant young trees, the fruit whereof another age shall take.

There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.

Francis Drake
Francis Drake
And sorrowing I to see the sommer flowers,
The lively greene, the lusty lease, forlorne,
The sturdy trees so shattred with the showers,
The fieldes so fade, that florisht so beforne:
It taught mee well, all earthly things be borne
To dye the death: for nought long time may last:
The sommer's beauty yeeldes to winter's blast.

Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset
Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset
The dominion of the sea, as it is an ancient and undoubted right of the crown of England, so it is the best security of the land…The wooden walls are the best walls of this kingdom.
Wooden walls = ships

Tilling and grazing are the two breasts that feed France.

Maximilien de Béthune
Maximilien de Béthune
We know well that the Primitive Church in her greatest purity were but voluntary congregations of believers, submitting themselves to the Apostles, and after to other Pastors, to whom they did minister of their Temporals, as God did move them. So as Ecclesiasticus, cap. 17, says, God appointed a Ruler over every people, when he divided nations of the whole Earth. And therefore if a people will refuse all government, it were against the law of God; and yet if a popular State will receive a Monarchy it stands well with the Law of God.

Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet
Sir Henry Hobart, 1st Baronet
The stronger his fortresses, the more assiduous must the prince be in protecting them, for on no side does he incur greater risk than on that where he seems most secure.

And for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search an unknown coast.... For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue.

The carrion crow, that loathsome beast,
Which cries against the rain.

George Gascoigne
George Gascoigne
My legal wife is to me dead; the only ecclesiastical authority I recognise pronounces me free; the attacks and threats of men do not disturb me. I am acting according to a clear conscience, and am doing hurt to no man. For my conduct, I will answer to my maker.

William the Silent
William the Silent
A parliament can do any thing but make a man a woman, and a woman a man.

Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke
Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke