Elizabeth I

God forgive you, but I never can.

The past can not be cured.

Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.

I pray to God that I shall not live one hour after I have thought of using deception.

I do not so much rejoice that God hath made me to be a Queen, as to be a Queen over so thankful a people.

The past cannot be cured.

There is one thing higher than Royalty: and that is religion, which causes us to leave the world, and seek God.

My mortal foe can no ways wish me a greater harm than England's hate neither should death be less welcome unto me than such a mishap betide me.

A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head.

Fear not, we are of the nature of the lion, and cannot descend to the destruction of mice and such small beasts.

I do not want a husband who honours me as a queen, if he does not love me as a woman.

Monarchs ought to put to death the authors and instigators of war, as their sworn enemies and as dangers to their states.

I know I have 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 have the heart of a man, not a woman, and I am not afraid of anything.

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 never be by violence constrained to do anything. I thank God I am indeed endowed with such qualities that if I were turned out of the realm in my petticoat I were able to live in any place in Christendom.

My care is like my shadow in the sun, Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.