Horatio Nelson

"Fear? I never saw fear. What is it? It never came near me."

"Those gobblers [the French]?- I detest them."

"There are three things, young gentlemen, which you are constantly to bear in mind. Firstly, you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own respecting their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly, you must hate a Frenchman, as you do the devil."

"Success, I trust — indeed have little doubt — will crown our zealous and well-meant endeavours: if not, our Country will, I believe, sooner forgive an Officer for attacking his Enemy than for letting it alone."

"The lives of all are in the hands of Him who knows best whether to preserve it or no, and to His will do I resign myself. My character and good name are in my own keeping. Life with disgrace is dreadful. A glorious death is to be envied, and, if anything happens to me recollect death is a debt we must all pay, and whether now or in a few years hence can be but of little consequence."

"I cannot, if I am in the field for glory, be kept out of sight. Probably my services may be forgotten by the great, by the time I get Home; but my mind will not forget, nor cease to feel, a degree of consolation and of applause superior to undeserved rewards. Wherever there is anything to be done, there Providence is sure to direct my steps. Credit must be given me in spite of envy."

"I had rather suffer death than alarm Mrs. Freemantle, by letting her see me in this state, when I can give her no tidings whatever of her husband."

"Let me alone, I have yet my legs left, and one arm. Tell the surgeon to make haste and get his instruments. I know I must lose my right arm, so the sooner it is off the better."

"First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can."

"Before this time to-morrow I shall have gained a peerage, or Westminster Abbey."

"The Neapolitan officers did not lose much honour, for God knows they had not much to lose - but they lost all they had."

"I am myself a Norfolk man, and I glory in being so."

"My greatest happiness is to serve my gracious King and Country and I am envious only of glory; for if it be a sin to covet glory I am the most offending soul alive."

"It is warm work; and this day may be the last to any of us at a moment. But mark you! I would not be elsewhere for thousands."

"To leave off action"? Well, damn me if I do! You know, Foley, I have only one eye,— I have a right to be blind sometimes . . . I really do not see the signal!"

"If a man consults whether he is to fight, when he has the power in his own hands, it is certain that his opinion is against fighting."

"There is in the handling of these Transatlantic ships a nucleus of trouble for the Navy of Great Britain."

"Never mind manoeuvres always go at them."

"If I had been censured every time I have run my ship, or fleets under my command, into great danger, I should have long ago been out of the Service and never in the House of Peers."

"Victory or Westminster Abbey."

"In honour I gained them, and in honour I will die with them."

"Duty is the great business of a sea officer; all private considerations must give way to it, however painful it may be."

"The measure may be thought bold, but I am of the opinion the boldest are the safest."

"Bonaparte has often made his boast, that our fleet would be worn out by keeping the sea, that his was kept in order, and increasing, by staying in port; but he now finds, I fancy, if emperors hear truth, that his fleet suffers more in a night, than ours in one year; however, thank God, the Toulon fleet is got in order again, and I hear the troops embarked, and I hope they will come out to sea in fine weather."

"Desperate affairs require desperate measures."

"I cannot command winds and weather."

"... When he was on the eve of departure for one of his great expeditions the coachmaker said to him, "The carriage shall be at the door punctually at six o clock"; "A quarter before," said Nelson. "I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time and it has made a man of me.""

"The bravest man feels an anxiety 'circa praecordia' as he enters the battle; but he dreads disgrace yet more."

"Time is everything; five minutes make the difference between victory and defeat."

"I am Lord Nelson. See, here's my fin."

"The business of the English Commander-in-Chief being first to bring an Enemy's Fleet to Battle, on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his Ships close on board the Enemy, as expeditiously as possible;) and secondly, to continue them there, without separating, until the business is decided."

"May the Great God, whom I worship, grant to my Country and for the benefit of Europe in general a great and glorious victory; and may no misconduct in anyone tarnish it; and may humanity after Victory be the predominant feature of the British fleet. For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him who made me, and may His blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my Country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen. Amen. Amen."

"Something must be left to chance; nothing is sure in a sea fight above all."

"When I am without orders and unexpected occurrences arrive I shall always act as I think the honour and glory of my King and Country demand. But in case signals can neither be seen or perfectly understood, no captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy."

"England expects every Man will do his Duty."

"Now I can do no more. We must trust to the Great Disposer of all Events and the Justice of our Cause. I thank God for this great opportunity of doing my Duty."

"This is too warm work, Hardy, to last long."

"Drink, drink. Fan, fan. Rub, rub."

"It is nonsense, Mr. Burke, to suppose I can live. My sufferings are great but they will soon be over."

"Kiss me, Hardy"

"Thank God, I have done my duty."

"Leaders can call to the best in us. I thought often of the inspiring flag signal Horatio Nelson sent on the eve of Trafalgar. "England expects every man will do his duty." The flags above the Victory didn't ask or demand obedience in the upcoming fight; they expressed Nelson's unshakable admiration for and faith in the sailors and patriots he knew them to be."

"No body of men have ever been so "un-English" as the great Englishmen, Nelson, Shelley, Gladstone: supreme in war, in literature, in practical affairs; yet with no single evidence in the characteristics of their energy that they possess any of the qualities of the English blood. But in submitting to the leadership of such perplexing variations from the common stock, the Englishman is merely exhibiting his general capacity for accepting the universe, rather than for rebelling against it."

"Let the country mourn their hero; I grieve for the loss of the most fascinating companion I ever conversed with — the greatest and most simple of men — one of the nicest and most innocent — interesting beyond all, on shore, in public and even in private life. Men are not always themselves and put on their behaviour with their clothes, but if you live with a man on board a ship for years; if you are continually with him in his cabin, your mind will soon find out how to appreciate him. I could for ever tell you the qualities of this beloved man. I have not shed a tear for years before the 21st of October and since, whenever alone, I am quite like a child."

"I only saw him once in my life, and for, perhaps, an hour. It was soon after I returned from India. I went to the Colonial Office in Downing Street, and there I was shown into the little waiting-room on the right hand, where I found, also waiting to see the Secretary of State, a gentleman, whom from his likeness to his pictures and the loss of an arm, I immediately recognised as Lord Nelson. He could not know who I was, but he entered at once into conversation with me, if I can call it conversation, for it was almost all on his side and all about himself, and in, really, a style so vain and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me. I suppose something that I happened to say may have made him guess that I was somebody, and he went out of the room for a moment, I have no doubt to ask the office-keeper who I was, for when he came back he was altogether a different man, both in manner and matter. All that I had thought a charlatan style had vanished, and he talked of the state of this country and of the aspect and probabilities of affairs on the Continent with a good sense, and a knowledge of subjects both at home and abroad, that surprised me equally and more agreeably than the first part of our interview had done; in fact, he talked like an officer and a statesman. The Secretary of State kept us long waiting, and certainly, for the last half or three-quarters of an hour, I don't know that I ever had a conversation that interested me more. Now, if the Secretary of State had been punctual, and admitted Lord Nelson in the first quarter of an hour, I should have had the same impression of a light and trivial character that other people have had, but luckily I saw enough to be satisfied that he was really a very superior man; but certainly a more sudden and complete metamorphosis I never saw."