“I doubt not but the fire illuminating heaven on Michelmas eve was seen there – such as I never saw for the time more fearful. God sendeth us such signs but for our erudition.”
Letter to Sir Francis Walsingham, c. 1573-76.
Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (London: Jonathan Cape, 1960), p. 155.
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William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley 9
English statesman 1520–1598Related quotes
“God never sends th' mouth but he sendeth meat.”
Part I, chapter 4.
Proverbs (1546), Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Vistes que, com grandíssima ousadia,
Foram já cometer o Céu supremo;
Vistes aquela insana fantasia
De tentarem o mar com vela e remo;
Vistes, e ainda vemos cada dia,
Soberbas e insolências tais, que temo
Que do Mar e do Céu, em poucos anos,
Venham Deuses a ser, e nós, humanos.
Stanza 29 (tr. Richard Fanshawe); council of the sea gods.
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto VI
from "November Cotton Flower"
Poems from Cane (1923)
Letter II : Heloise to Abelard
Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Context: A consolatory letter of yours to a friend happened some days since to fall into my hands. My knowledge of the character, and my love of the hand, soon gave me the curiosity to open it. In justification of the liberty I took, I flattered myself I might claim a sovereign privilege over every thing which came from you nor was I scrupulous to break thro' the rules of good breeding, when it was to hear news of Abelard. But how much did my curiosity cost me? what disturbance did it occasion? and how was I surprised to find the whole letter filled with a particular and melancholy account of our misfortunes? I met with my name a hundred times; I never saw it without fear: some heavy calamity always, followed it, I saw yours too, equally unhappy. These mournful but dear remembrances, puts my spirits into such a violent motion, that I thought it was too much to offer comfort to a friend for a few slight disgraces by such extraordinary means, as the representation of our sufferings and revolutions. What reflections did I not make, I began to consider the whole afresh, and perceived myself pressed with the same weight of grief as when we first began to be miserable. Tho' length of time ought to have closed up my wounds, yet the seeing them described by your hand was sufficient to make them all open and bleed afresh. Nothing can ever blot from my memory what you have suffered in defence of your writings.
Variant: Doubt thou the stars are fire
Doubt thou the sun doth move
Doubt truth to be a liar
But never doubt I love
Source: Hamlet
As quoted in Jesus : Myth Or Reality? (2006) by Ian Curtis, p. 289.
Date unknown