“(Response to King Erik XIV of Sweden's proposal of marriage:)"[W]hile we perceive ... the zeal and love of your mind towards us is not diminished, yet in part we are grieved that we cannot gratify your Serene Highness with the same kind of affection. And that indeed does not happen because we doubt in any way of your love and honour, but, as often we have testified both in words and writing, that we have never yet conceived a feeling of that kind of affection towards anyone.We therefore beg your Serene Highness again and again that you be pleased to set a limit to your love, that it advance not beyond the laws of friendship for the present nor disregard them in the future. ... We certainly think that if God ever direct our hearts to consideration of marriage we shall never accept or choose any absent husband how powerful and wealthy a Prince soever. But that we are not to give you an answer until we have seen your person is so far from the thing itself that we never even considered such a thing. I have always given both to your brother ... and also to your ambassador likewise the same answer with scarcely any variation of the words, that we do not conceive in our heart to take a husband but highly commend this single life, and hope that your Serene Highness will no longer spend time in waiting for us.”

“Elizabeth's whole style of rule was pragmatic and free from preconceptions. It was not that she had no strategic aims, but they were broad and simple. God had entrusted her with three things: a realm to defend; a church to lead in the true way; and a people to protect, both against foreign enemies and against themselves.”

“The past can not be cured.”

“My care is like my shadow in the sun, Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.”

“In no issue of foreign policy could her prevarication and indecisiveness be said to have led to disastrous consequences for her country. On the international stage there was no better survivor. At home her achievement can only be judged with hindsight. A combination of good sense and longevity settled the church, and it was no fault of hers that confessional issues became so divisive forty years after her death. She gave her country pride, and set its commercial development on a course that was eventually to be spectacularly successful; for that she deserves more credit than she is usually given.”

“The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof.”

“I grieve and dare not show my discontent, I love and yet am forced to seem to hate,I do, yet dare not say I ever meant, I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate. I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned, Since from myself another self I turned. My care is like my shadow in the sun, Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.”

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

“Where might is mixed with wit, there is too good an accord in a government.”

“God forgive you, but I never can.”

“Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested.”