Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) was an English military and political leader and later Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland. Born into the middle gentry, albeit to a family descended from the sister of King Henry VIII’s minister Thomas Cromwell, Cromwell was relatively obscure for the first 40 years of his life. After undergoing a religious conversion in the 1630s, he became an Independent Puritan, taking a generally tolerant view towards the many Protestant sects of his period. An intensely religious man—a self-styled Puritan Moses—he fervently believed that God was guiding his victories. He was elected Member of Parliament for Huntingdon in 1628 and for Cambridge in the Short and Long Parliaments. He entered the English Civil War on the side of the “Roundheads” or Parliamentarians. Nicknamed “Old Ironsides”, he was quickly promoted from leading a single cavalry troop to become one of the principal commanders of the New Model Army, playing an important role in the defeat of the royalist forces.
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You have sat too long for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: Parliament
Does a man speak foolishly? — suffer him gladly, for you are wise. Does he speak erroneously? — stop such a man’s mouth with sound words that cannot be gainsaid. Does he speak truly? — rejoice in the truth.
—Oliver Cromwell
Necessity has no law.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: Necessity
No man rises so high as he knows not whither he goes.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: Ambition, Getting Ahead
Mr. Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.
—Oliver Cromwell
Subtlety may deceive you; integrity never will.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: Deception, Deception/Lying, Integrity
A few honest men are better than numbers.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: Honesty
The State, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions. If they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: Politics
What are all histories but God manifesting himself, shaking down and trampling under foot whatsoever he hath not planted.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: History
I had rather have a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that which you call a Gentle-man and is nothing else.
—Oliver Cromwell
Make the iron hot by striking it.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: Action, Opportunity
Trust in God, but keep your powder dry.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: Self-reliance
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: Mistakes
He who stops being better stops being good.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: Live, Progress, Good, Self-improvement, Excellence
What is all our histories, but God showing himself, shaking and trampling on everything that he has not planted.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: History
He Oliver Cromwell in a furious manner, bid the Speaker leave his chair; told the house That they had sat long enough, unless they had done more good; and that it was not fit they should sit as a parliament any longer, and desired them to go away.
—Oliver Cromwell
No one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going.
—Oliver Cromwell
Topics: Goals
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