I would rather be a beggar and single than a queen and married.

[To Parliament, when it urged her to marry and settle the succession:] You attend to your own duties and I'll perform mine.

For, what is a family without a steward, a ship without a pilot, a flock without a shepherd, a body without a head, the same, I think, is a kingdom without the health and safety of a good monarch.

There is no marvel in a woman learning to speak, but there would be in teaching her to hold her tongue

I find that I sent wolves not shepherds to govern Ireland, for they have left me nothing but ashes and carcasses to reign over!

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

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.