Quotes by Horatio Nelson

• My character and good name are in my own keeping. Life with disgrace is dreadful. A glorious death is to be envied.
• 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.
• Time is everything; five minutes make the difference between victory and defeat.
• Our country will, I believe, sooner forgive an officer for attacking an enemy than for letting it alone.
• 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 opportunity of doing my duty.
• No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.
• 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.
• Let me alone: I have yet my legs and one arm. Tell the surgeon to make haste and his instruments. I know I must lose my right arm, so the sooner it's off the better.
• 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. - at the Battle of Copenhagen.
• In honour I gained them, and in honour I will die with 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.
• England expects that every man will do his duty.
• Never break the neutrality of a port or place, but never consider as neutral any place from whence an attack is allowed to be made.
• I have only one eye, I have a right to be blind sometimes... I really do not see the signal!
• Buonaparte has often made his boast that our fleet would be worn out by keeping the sea and that his was kept in order and increasing by staying in port; but know he finds, I fancy, if Emperors hear the truth, that his fleet suffers more in a night than ours in one year.
• Duty is the great business of a sea officer; all private considerations must give way to it, however painful it may be.
• First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can.
• Gentlemen, when the enemy is committed to a mistake we must not interrupt him too soon.
• I cannot command winds and weather.
• I cannot, if I am in the field of glory, be kept out of sight: wherever there is anything to be done, there Providence is sure to direct my steps.
• I could not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a saving sense of humor.
• Desperate affairs require desperate measures.