Oliver Cromwell

Table of contents

1 Oliver Cromwell (April 25, 1599 - September 3, 1658) 2 Sourced 3 Quotes on Cromwell 4 Attributed

Oliver Cromwell (April 25 , 1599 - September 3 , 1658 )

English statesman, soldier, and revolutionary; Lord High Protector of the Commonwealth of England

Sourced

• I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that you call a Gentleman and is nothing else.
  • Letter to Sir William Spring (September 1643)

• A few honest men are better than numbers.
  • Letter to Sir William Spring (September 1643)

• The State, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions. If they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies.
  • Statement before the battle of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644)

• I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.
  • Letter to the general assembly of the Church of Scotland (August 3, 1650).

• You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately... Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
  • Address to the Long Parliament (April 20, 1653)

• Necessity hath no law. Feigned necessities, imagined necessities... are the greatest cozenage that men can put upon the Providence of God, and make pretenses to break known rules by.
  • Statement to Parliament (September 12, 1654)

• I would have been glad to have lived under my woodside, and to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than to have undertaken this government.
  • Statement to Parliament (1658)

• It is not my design to drink or to sleep, but my design is to make what haste I can to be gone.
  • Dying words

• Mr. Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.
  • Anecdotes of Painting in England (1762-1771) by Horace Walpole

Quotes on Cromwell

• A perfect master of all the arts of dissimulation: who, turning up the whites of his eyes, and seeking the Lord with pious gestures, will weep and pray, and cant most devoutly, till an opportunity offers of dealing his dupe a knock-down blow under the short ribs.
  • George Bate (1608-1669), Cromwell's doctor.

Attributed

• A man-of-war is the best ambassador.

• Not only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking.

• On becoming soldiers we have not ceased to be citizens.

• Put your trust in God, but keep your powder dry.

• To Hell or to Connaught.