Quotes by Elizabeth I

“The past can not be cured.”

“(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 ...”

“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 ...”

“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.”

“I observe and remain silent.”

“If we still advise we shall never do.”

“If I follow the inclination of my nature, it is this: beggar-woman and single, far rather than queen and married.”

“[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.”

“[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...”

“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.”

“I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king”

“Life is for living and working at. If you find anything or anybody a bore, the fault is in yourself.”

“I did not worry about what a man or woman personally believed, but the nation's official religion should be outwardly practiced by all its citizens. A religion was a political statement. Being a Ca...”

“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...”

“In an era when the regular worthy rhythm of life is less eye-catching than doing something extraordinary, I am reassured that I am merely the second sovereign to celebrate a diamond jubilee.”

“Perhaps life is like an hour glass, with dear ones the sand that slips from the upper glass--the earth--into the second--eternity.”

“...early medieval Ireland sounds like a somewhat crazed Wisconsin, in which every dairy farm is an armed camp at perpetual war with its neighbors, and every farmer claims he is a king.”

“Elizabeth's whole style of rule was pragmatic and free from preconceptions. It was not that she had no strategic aims, but they were broad and simple. God had entrusted her with three things: a rea...”

“In no issue of foreign policy could her prevarication and indecisiveness be said to have led to disastrous consequences for her country. On the international stage there was no better survivor. At ...”

“Like her father, Bess never forgot a hurt or a service.”