Oliver Cromwell Quotes


I would have been glad to have lived under my wood side, and to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than to have undertaken this government.


Citations

Cromwell, Oliver. The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell. Edited by Wilbur Cortez Abbott, vol. 4, Harvard University Press, 1947, p. 417.

Related Quotes

See Charles James Fox, John Milton, Grover Cleveland, George Mason, Henry Clay, Benjamin Disraeli and Woodrow Wilson for similar expressions of this idea.


This was the lesson we learned in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, American leadership at the time knew little of this quotation.


Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
  • Born: April 25, 1599
  • Died: September 3, 1658
  • Nationality: English
  • Profession: Farmer, Parliamentarian, Military Commander

Oliver Cromwell was an English general and statesman who, first as a subordinate and later as Commander-in-Chief, led armies of the Parliament of England against King Charles I during the English Civil War, subsequently ruling the British Isles as Lord Protector from 1653 until his death in 1658. He acted simultaneously as head of state and head of government of the new republican commonwealth.