If there were two princes in Christendom who had good will and courage, it would be very easy to reconcile the religious difficulties; there is only one Jesus Christ and one faith, and all the rest is a dispute over trifles.
He that will forget God, will also forget his benefactors.
Be of good cheer, for you will never want, for the bullet was meant for me, though it hit you.
Words are leaves, the substance consists of deeds, which are the true fruits of a good tree.
They best pass over the world who trip over it quickly; for it is but a bog. If we stop, we sink.
O Fortune, how thy restless, wavering state has fraught with cares my troubled wit!
I pluck up the good lissome herbs of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, digest them by musing, and lay them up at length in the high seat of memory.
It is good to jest, but not to make a trade of jesting.
Chastity is the ermine of woman’s soul.
I am more afraid of making a fault in my Latin than of the Kings of Spain, France, Scotland, the whole House of Guise, and all of their confederates.
Affection! Affection is false.
If I should say the sweetest speech with the eloquentest tongue that ever was in man, I were not able to express that restless care which I have ever bent to govern for the greatest wealth.
Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects.
I would gladly chastise those who represent things as different from what they are. Those who steal property or make counterfeit money are punished, and those ought to be still more severely dealt with who steal away or falsify the good name of a prince.
Although my royal rank causes me to doubt whether my kingdom is not more sought after than myself, yet I understand that you havefound other graces in me.
Must! Is must a word to be addressed to princes? Little man, little man! Thy father, if he had been alive, durst not have used that word.
The name of a successor is like the tolling of my own death-bell!
If our web be framed with rotten handles, when our loom is well nigh done, our work is new to begin. God send the weaver true prentices again, and let them be denizens.
There is small disproportion betwixt a fool who useth not wit because he hath it not and him that useth it not when it should avail him.
A fool too late bewares when all the peril is past.