Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys PRS, MP, JPwas an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is most famous for the diary that he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man. Pepys had no maritime experience, but he rose to be the Chief Secretary to the Admiralty under both King Charles II and King James II through patronage, hard work, and his talent for administration. His influence and reforms at the Admiralty were important in the early professionalisation of...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth23 February 1633
Saw a wedding in the church. It was strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition.
Strange, to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition, every man and wife gazing and smiling at them.
Strange to say what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition.
As happy a man as any in the world, for the whole world seems to smile upon me!
Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.
I do still see that my nature is not to be quite conquered, but will esteem pleasure above all things, though yet in the middle of it, it has reluctances after my business, which is neglected by my following my pleasure. However musique and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is.
I see it is impossible for the King to have things done as cheap as other men.
Mighty proud I am that I am able to have a spare bed for my friends.
Fight the good fight; and always call to mind that it is not you who are mortal, but this body of ours. For your true being is not discerned by perceiving your physical appearance. But 'what a man's mind is, that is what he is' not that individual human shape that we identify through our senses.
But Lord! To see the absurd nature of Englishmen that cannot forbear laughing and jeering at everything that looks strange.
At the Royall Oake Taverne, I drank a sort of French wine called Ho Bryan, that hath a good and most particular taste that I never met with.
The best of a bad bargain.
I did this night promise my wife never to go to bed without calling upon God, upon my knees, in prayer.
Find myself £43 worse than I was the last month ... chiefly arisen from my layings-out in clothes for myself and wife; viz., for her, about £12, and for myself, £55 or thereabouts.