[On being told Mary, Queen of Scots, was taller than she:] Then she is too high, for I myself am neither too high nor too low.

My seat has been the seat of kings, and I will have no rascal to succeed 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.

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

I plucke up the goodlie greene herbes of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, chawe them by musing, and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together; that I, having tasted the sweetenes, l may the lesse perceave the bitternes of this miserable life.

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.

There is an Italian proverb which saith, From my enemy let me defend myself; but from a pretensed friend Lord deliver me