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Cromwell Quotes

Browse 25 quotes about Cromwell.

Cromwell Quotes

“In the forest you may find yourself lost, without companions. You may come to a river which is not on a map. You may lose sight of your quarry, and forget why you are there. You may meet a dwarf, or the living Christ, or an old enemy of yours; or a new enemy, one you do not know until you see his face appear between the rustling leaves, and see the glint of his dagger. You may find a woman asleep in a bower of leaves. For a moment, before you don’t recognise her, you will think she is someone you know.”

FictionEnglandHistorical FictionCromwellThomas CromwellWolf HallThe Tudors
Book:Wolf Hall
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“The career of Puritanism has been curious. It held brief power in England in the seventeenth century, but so disgusted the mass of ordinary citizens that they have never again allowed it to control the Government. The Puritans, persecuted in England, colonised New England, and subsequently the Middle West. The American Civil War was a continuation of the English Civil War, the Southern States having been mainly colonised by opponents of the Puritans. But unlike the English Civil War, it led to a permanent victory of the Puritan Party. The result is that the greatest Power in the world is controlled by men who inherit the outlook of Cromwell’s Ironsides.”

ReligionAmerican HistoryAmerican CultureAmerican Civil WarPuritanismMoralismCromwellEnglish Civil War
Book:Sceptical Essays
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“From the 15th century to 1688, England and Wales, like Scotland, had been peripheral kingdoms in the European power game, more often at war with each other that with Continental powers, and - except under Oliver Cromwell - scarcely very successful on those occasions when they did engage the Dutch, or the French, or the Spanish.”

WarGamesSuccessfulCenturyEnglandKingdomsOccasionsScotlandDutchWalesBritish HistoryContinentalCromwell
Book:Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837
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“The greatness of a popular character is less according to the ratio of his genius than the sympathy he shows with the prejudices and even the absurdities of his time. Fanatics do not select the cleverest but the most fanatical leaders as was evidenced in the choice of Robespierre by the French Jacobins, and in that of Cromwell by the English Puritans.”

CharacterShowsChoicesLeaderGreatnessGeniusPrejudicePopularityAbsurditySelectFanaticsRatiosPuritanCromwell
Book:Memoirs of Celebrated Characters
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“It has been remarked that almost every character which has excited either attention or pity has owed part of its success to merit, and part to a happy concurrence of circumstances in its favor. Had Caesar or Cromwell exchanged countries, the one might have been a sergeant and the other an exciseman.”

Has BeensCountryCharacterMightAttentionCircumstancesFortuneExcitedFavorsPityMeritMight Have BeenSergeantsConcurrenceCromwell
Book:Essays and poems, by Dr. Oliver Goldsmith. To which are prefixed, memoirs of the author
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“The 'Little' or 'Barebones' Parliament, summoned by Oliver Cromwell to meet at Westminster on 4th July, 1653, after the dissolution of the remains of the Long Parliament, may have been an unpractical body, so far as the task of administration in troublous times was concerned. But it seems quite possible that the wealth of contumely and scorn which has been poured upon it was, originally, due quite as much to the fierce anger of vested interests against outspoken criticism, as to any real vagueness or want of practical wisdom in the plans of the House itself.”

WantMayLittlesLongHas BeensRealBodySeemsHouseInterestWealthPlansConcernedTasksCriticismRemainsDuesPracticalsAdministrationFierceParliamentScorn4th Of JulyJulyDissolutionOutspokenVested InterestsVaguenessWestminsterCromwell
Author:Edward Jenks
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“When I see that the nineteenth century has crowned the idolatry of Art with the deification of Love, so that every poet is supposed to have pierced to the holy of holies when he has announced that Love is the Supreme, or the Enough, or the All, I feel that Art was safer in the hands of the most fanatical of Cromwell's major generals than it will be if ever it gets into mine.”

IfsFeelsArtEnoughHandsLove IsCenturyMinesPoetHolyMajorsSupremeIdolatryNineteenth CenturyCromwell
Book:Three Plays for Puritans
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“You ask what I have found and far and wide I go, Nothing but Cromwell's house and Cromwell's murderous crew, The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay, And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen where are they?”

MenAsksFoundHouseLoversWideOppressionDancerTallCrewBeatenClayHorsemenCromwellSwordsman
Book:The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition
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“Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) moved from a legitimate to a charismatic role, reversing the course followed by Washington. Yet therewere surface similarities in their careers. Both led military rebellions against English monarchs--Cromwell against Charles I, Washington against George III. Each took local militia--the "train bands" of Cromwell, the colonial levies of Washington--and forged professional armies on a national scale. Each infused a new ethos in his troops--a religious spirit in Cromwell's case, a post-colonial American identity in Washington's.”

SpiritCoursesReligiousCareersRolesCasesMilitaryIdentityBandArmyMovedTrainSurfaceScalesLocalsPostsRebellionTroopsSimilarityMonarchsMilitiaForgedCharismaticEthosCromwellAmerican IdentityCharles I
Author:Garry Wills
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“In a Balkan country, not so many years ago, a party which had been beaten by a narrow margin in a general election retrieved its fortunes by shooting a sufficient number of the representatives of the other side to give it a majority. . . . Cromwell and Robespierre . . . acted likewise.”

GivingYearsCountrySidesPartyNumbersYears AgoElectionMajorityFortuneShootingSufficientRepresentativesBeatenMarginsBalkansGeneral ElectionsCromwell
Book:Unpopular Essays
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“Very interesting show. It's "Hotel" with the E missing. Hot L Baltimore. It was about a rundown hotel which had become kind of a residential not quite welfare but almost welfare hotel with a very bizarre collection of people.The desk clerk was played by Jamie Cromwell. That was his first big thing. Conchata Ferrell played April, the main of the two prostitutes, and my character didn't exist in the [stage] show.”

PeopleFirstsKindTwoCharacterShowsBigsInterestingStageMissingHotWelfareCollectionsHotelDesksBizarreBig ThingsVery InterestingAprilClerksBaltimoreJamieCromwell
Author:Richard Masur
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“When I came to write my Thomas Cromwell books, I moved onto the center ground of English history, but I was never there before. I didn't feel it was my history particularly, coming from Northern Britain, being of Irish extraction, being a cradle Catholic. The image of England I grew up with felt somewhere else. There was an official England in postcards, but it wasn't one I had visited. But I decided to march onto the center ground and occupy it whether it was mine or not.”

FeelsWritingBookFeltMinesGrewGrew UpDecidedEnglandCatholicMovedOfficialsBritainMarchSomewhere ElseCradlePostcardsEnglish HistoryExtractionCromwell
Author:Hilary Mantel
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“Taxation, the very thing that had triggered the British civil wars, would do so again, this time in America. The taxes may have been different, but the result would once again be disaster. What happened in America was really round two of those wars - the civil war of the British Empire, with the Hanoverians playing the part of the Stuarts, and the Americans the heirs of the revolutionaries, of Cromwell and of William III, the inheritors of a true British liberty, that had somehow got lost in its own motherland.”

MayHas BeensTwoDifferentWarAmericaLostResultsLibertyHistoryHappenedTaxesRoundsBritishDisasterRevolutionaryCivil WarEmpiresTaxationHeirsBritish EmpireBritish HistoryMotherlandCromwell
Author:Simon Schama
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