English Politician Quotes

Oliver Cromwell

Charles II of England

Francis Drake

Mary I of England

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Samuel Pepys

William Wilberforce

If I am given the privilege of becoming the first democratically elected Lord Mayor I'll never write another book.

All Politeness is owing to Liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a Rust upon Mens Understandings.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures.. are found upon comparison to be really part of the original law of nature. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.

William Blackstone

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.

William Bradford (1590-1657)

A discovery in mathematics, or a successful induction of facts, when once completed, cannot be too soon given to the world. But... an hypothesis is a work of fancy, useless in science, and fit only for the amusement of a vacant hour.

Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux

All these threatening storms, which, like impregnate Clouds, hover o'er our heads, will (when they once are grasp'd but by the eye of reason) melt into fruitful showers of blessings on the people.

George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham

The vices and the virtues are written in a language the world cannot construe; it reads them in a vile translation, and the translators are Failure and Success.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

When stars are in the quiet skies, Then most I pine for thee; Bend on me then thy tender eyes, As stars look on the sea.

Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton

The curse of the working class is the fewness of their wants, the poverty of their desires.

I will not by myself, or any other, directly or indirectly trouble, molest or discountenance any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ for or in respect of religion. I will make no difference of persons in conferring offices, favors or rewards for or in respect of religion, but merely as they shall be found faithful and well deserving and endued with moral virtue and abilities. My aim shall be public unity and that if any person or official shall molest any person professing to believe in Jesus Christ on account of his religion I will protect the person molested and punish the offender.

An oath he wrote in 1636 for future Maryland governors

Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore

Thus your Lordship sees that we Papists want not Charity towards you Protestants, whatsoever the less understanding Part of the World think of us.

George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore

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

Good jests ought to bite like lambs, not dogs: they should cut, not wound.

Charles II of England

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

On the contrary, all the world would point to that nation as violating a treaty, by going to war with a country with whom they had engaged to enter into arbitration.

It is a general rule of Judgment, that a mischief should rather be admitted than an inconvenience.

William Cowper, 1st Earl Cowper

I would have my son mind and understand business, read little history, study the mathematics and cosmography; these are good, with subordination to the things of God.... These fit for public services for which man is born.

Oliver Cromwell

[I am] A Subject and born to obey laws... The trial of all laws only consisteth in honest and probable witness.

Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex

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

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

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

The remembrance of death is very powerful to restrain us from sinning. For he should well consider the day will come (and he knoweth not how soon)..... no more Suns will rise and set upon him;.. no more seeing, no more hearing. no more speaking, no more touching, no more tasting, no more fancying, no more understanding, no more remembering, no more desiring, no more loving, no more delights of any sort to be enjoyed by him... let any man duly and daily ponder these things, and how can it be that he should dare.....

Nicholas Ferrar

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

George Gascoigne

They may the better fish in the water when it is troubled.

Richard Grafton

Oh wearisome Condition of Humanity!
Born under one law, to another bound:
Vainly begot and yet forbidden vanity,
Created sick, commanded to be sound:
What meaneth Nature by these diverse laws?
Passion and reason, self-division cause.
Is it the mark, or Majesty of Power
To make offences that it may forgive?

Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke