Mask of Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson (1758-1805), taken from life in 1800 © National Maritime Museum, London, Nelson Ward Collection. Repro ID D6591_5 'Firstly you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own regarding 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 hate the devil.'
Aboard the Agamemnon, 1793

'Our country will, I believe, sooner forgive an officer for attacking an enemy than for letting it alone.'
The attack on Bastia, 3 May 1794

'My character and good name are in my own keeping. Life with disgrace is dreadful. A glorious death is to be envied.'
10 March 1795

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

'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.'
1797

'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.'
After being wounded during the attack on Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 24 July 1797

'First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can.'
Prior to the Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1797

'There is no way of dealing with the Frenchman but to knock him down – to be civil to them is to be laughed at. Why they are enemies!'
11 Jan 1798

'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.'
Letter to Emma, Lady Hamilton, 1800

'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.'
The Battle of Copenhagen, 2 April 1801

'Desperate affairs require desperate measures.'

'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.'
March 1805

'Something must be left to chance; nothing is sure in a sea fight above all.'
Prior to the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805

'England Expects that every man will do his duty.'
Trafalgar signal flown from the Victory, 21 October 1805

'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.'
Prior to the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805

'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.'
Prior to the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805

'To obey orders is all perfection. To serve my King and destroy the French, I consider as the great order of all, from which little ones spring; and if one of these militate against it (for who can tell exactly at a distance), I go back and obey the great order and object, to down – down with the damned French villains! My blood boils at the name of a Frenchman! Down, down with the French! … is my constant prayer.'

'My seamen are now what British seamen ought to be … almost invincible; they really mind shot no more than peas.'

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

'Thank God I have done my duty.'
Dying words at the Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805