Quotes from Sir Walter Ralegh

Our passions are most like to floods and streams,The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.

Go, Soul, the body's quest,Upon a thankless arrant:Fear not to touch the best,The truth shall be thy warrant:Go, since I needs must die,And give the world the lie.

Like to an hermit poor in place obscure,I mean to spend my days of endless doubt,To wail such woes as time cannot recure,Where none but Love shall ever find me out.

O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the farstretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, Hic jacet!

Methought I saw the grave where Laura lay.

As you came from the holy landOf Walsinghame,Met you not with my true LoveBy the way as you came?

Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.

Silence in love bewrays more woeThan words, though ne'er so witty;A beggar that is dumb, you know,Deserveth double pity.

Shall I, like a hermit, dwellOn a rock or in a cell?

[History] hath triumphed over time, which besides it nothing but eternity hath triumphed over.

If all the world and love were young,And truth in every shepherd's tongue,These pretty pleasures might me moveTo live with thee, and be thy love.

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

Even such is time, that takes in trustOur youth, our joys, our 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.

Give me 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 gageAnd thus I'll take my pilgrimage.