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Queen Elizabeth Quotes

Browse 55 quotes about Queen Elizabeth.

Queen Elizabeth Quotes

“Leadership is service, not a throne to seize Empowering and uplifting those you lead with ease Each day, ask yourself how you can lend a hand Supporting others, not yourself, is what makes a true command The Queen’s example, a shining light Acknowledging and elevating others, always in her sight Breaking through barriers, supporting good causes Making everyone feel valued, she’s a true leader who never paused Let us all follow in her regal path Celebrating each other’s achievements, no aftermath Age and gender, never to be a limitation We can all make a positive impact on this nation Remember, true leadership is not about fame It’s measured by the success and well-being of your game So lead with service, and watch your people thrive For a true leader empowers, and helps their people to survive.”

“I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughout all my life and with all my heart I shall strive to be worthy of your trust.” Her Majesty at the Coronation in 1953”

“I cannot lead you into battle, I do not give you laws or administer justice, but I can do something else: I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.” Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II”

“Of all public figures and benefactors of mankind, no one is loved by history more than the literary patron. Napoleon was just a general of forgotten battles compared with the queen who paid for Shakespeare's meals and beer in the tavern. The statesman who in his time freed the slaves, even he has a few enemies in posterity, whereas the literary patron has none. We thank Gaius Maecenas for the nobility of soul we attribute to Virgil; but he isn’t blamed for the selfishness and egocentricity that the poet possessed. The patron creates 'literature through altruism,' something not even the greatest genius can do with a pen.”

“My fairytale was full of witches, pixies, pirates, dementors, princesses, clowns, true love, betrayal, battles and kings. Yet, I stood on the edge of never and with the bravery of a queen I could see across forever....and I whisphered to the wind, "Morals of great stories didn’t live in kindness. They bloomed from the ashes of who you were to where you were meant to be."”

“Tame him? You can't tame a Tower rat--they're flea-bitten and vicious." "So are most men!" The girl smiled and stretched her cramped limbs. "Shall I tame one of them instead? They too make diverting pets, you know." Markham laughed nervously. "Wouldn't you rather have a dog, madam?" "Ah no--too loyal! They present no challenge." Behind the girl's steady eyes a shadow stirred. "My mother had a dog once. She used to make it jump through a burning hoop to prove its devotion to her, until she found my father did it better. He jumped through that hoop for over six years. When he finally got tired of performing for her amusement he killed her. And that's what makes men such interesting pets, Markham--you never know when they're going to turn and bite.”

“It’s not his friendship I miss,’ Elizabeth said bluntly. ‘It’s him. The very person of him. His presence. I want his shadow on my wall, I want the smell of him. I can’t eat without him, I can’t do the business of the realm. I can’t read a book without wanting his opinion, I can’t hear a tune without wanting to sing it to him.”

“Homer, in the second book of the Iliad says with fine enthusiasm, "Give me masturbation or give me death." Caesar, in his Commentaries, says, "To the lonely it is company; to the forsaken it is a friend; to the aged and to the impotent it is a benefactor. They that are penniless are yet rich, in that they still have this majestic diversion." In another place this experienced observer has said, "There are times when I prefer it to sodomy." Robinson Crusoe says, "I cannot describe what I owe to this gentle art." Queen Elizabeth said, "It is the bulwark of virginity." Cetewayo, the Zulu hero, remarked, "A jerk in the hand is worth two in the bush." The immortal Franklin has said, "Masturbation is the best policy." Michelangelo and all of the other old masters--"old masters," I will remark, is an abbreviation, a contraction--have used similar language. Michelangelo said to Pope Julius II, "Self-negation is noble, self-culture beneficent, self-possession is manly, but to the truly great and inspiring soul they are poor and tame compared with self-abuse." Mr. Brown, here, in one of his latest and most graceful poems, refers to it in an eloquent line which is destined to live to the end of time--"None knows it but to love it; none name it but to praise.”

“The Lion of Albion by Stewart Stafford Bell tolls on the second age of Elizabeth, As another reign of Charles commences, The Lion of Albion monitors its domain, With the steadying mending of fences. Acceding to the throne, León Coronado, History's weight on verisimilar shoulders, As the matriarch reflects in absentia, Crown jewel of memory to beholders. Over moor, loch, valley and causeway, Rises the realm of Charles Rex III, Phoenix feathers of noblesse oblige, For the Brexit nesting of a dove bird. © Stewart Stafford, 2022. All rights reserved.”

“One evening, a male friend hosting a house party was interrupted by a frantic call from the princess, who was threatening to commit suicide by throwing herself from her bedroom window. Panicked, the gentleman rang up the queen, who remained unfazed by her sister's dramatics. With characteristic sangfroid Her Majesty informed the caller to "carry on with your house party. Her bedroom is on the ground floor.”

“It only increased Margaret's dislike of her name when young Elizabeth, whom the family called Lilibet, insisted on referring to her baby sister as "Bud". "She's not a real rose yet, is she? She's only a bud." Elizabeth, who was four years Margaret's senior, pertly told Lady Cynthia Asquith.”

“Cruel and paradoxical though it undoubtedly is, the record shows that yje most succesful 20th century monarchs have been those who were not actually born to succeed. King George VI was 41 when the abdication of Edward VIII propelled him suddenly and unexpectedly to take up the crown; and Queen Elizabeth II spent her first decade with no inkling thay she herself might one day have to reign. Taken together, these examples suggest that the best preparation for the job of sovereign is not to be prepared for it at all, ir not to be too well prepared for it, or for too long.”

“If it really was Queen Elizabeth who demanded to see Falstaff in a comedy, then she showed herself a very perceptive critic. But even in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff has not and could not have found his true home because Shakespeare was only a poet. For that he was to wait nearly two hundred years till Verdi wrote his last opera. Falstaff is not the only case of a character whose true home is the world of music; others are Tristan, Isolde and Don Giovanni.”

“Some years later I met Queen Elizabeth II, in our capital Ottawa at a Canada Day celebration. David Foster and I were doing the show and we both met her afterwards. She told me how much she loved the Canadian Railroad Trilogy. She looked at me and said, "oh, that song", and then said again, "that song", and that was all she said.”

“I think about the kinds of gardens that Queen Elizabeth put up. She made gardens in the shape of an "E," for Elizabeth, just one more way in which she used symbolism to solidify her reign: appearing as the Virgin Queen, for example, or wearing a dress embroidered with eyes and ears to indicate that she knew all that was going on in her castle; she had spies.”

“One other thing: at the meeting in Canada, [there was] the coup in Fiji. This comes to an important part of the Commonwealth: the role of the Queen [Elizabeth II]. I had absolutely just enormous respect for her as leader of the Commonwealth. You could talk to her about any of the fifty-one countries of the Commonwealth and you could have an intelligent conversation with her about the economics, the politics. She really immersed herself in the Commonwealth.”

“I think there are a number of reasons, not least of which is the personality of the Queen [ Elizabeth II]. It's very easy to underrate her significance. I think she finds the Commonwealth and her position as Head of the Commonwealth infinitely more interesting than being the Queen of England, because she has no significant role in the latter.”

“Imagine that Queen Elizabeth I, in her time, had the opportunity to give out a monopoly for playing cards within the kingdom. She knew she was going to give it to one of her courtiers. These courtiers would then all try to curry her favour. Meanwhile, they would not contribute anything to the product of the kingdom, in fact, they were wasting resources trying to secure a single prize. That, more or less, is rent seeking.”

“When I spoke at the St. Lawrence Seaway ceremonies in 1969, I borrowed some words from the monument there which I had joined Queen Elizabeth in dedicating just 10 years before. That monument, as its inscription puts it, 'bears witness to the common purpose of two nations whose frontiers are the frontiers of friendship, whose ways are the ways of freedom, whose works are the works of peace'.”

“We spent the first night of our honeymoon in a country hotel, with Tudor architecture oak beams, and floors which sloped, of the Queen-Elizabeth-Slept-Here variety. There were old tennis-courts - the Tudor kind where Henry VIII was said to have played; and gardens filled with winter heather, jasmine and yellow chrysanthemums. [...] So that first night together was spent in the ancient bedroom with the tiny leaded paned windows, through which shafts of moonlight touched the room with a dreamlike radiance [...]”