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Saint Helena — quotes, proverbs & wisdom

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Real words from the people of Saint Helena, each with a verified source. New quotes are added as each is fact-checked.

Capital: JamestownPopulation: ~4,400 (2021 census)Founded: Sighted 1502 (Portuguese); settled by the English from 1659Region: AfricaLanguages: enCurrency: Saint Helena pound (SHP); pegged 1:1 to pound sterlingQuote code: 290Quote_sh

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Proverbs

“He doesn't have a bone in his tongue.”

Said of someone who speaks whatever comes to mind, bluntly and without regard for tact or consequence.

Traditional Saint Helena Wisdom

Source: Saint Helena Island Info, "Speak Saint" — Saint dialect sayings reference, sainthelenaisland.info

“Put the goat in charge of the vegetable patch.”

A warning against entrusting responsibility to someone who cannot be trusted with it, the local equivalent of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Traditional Saint Helena Wisdom

Source: Saint Helena Island Info, "Speak Saint" — Saint dialect sayings reference, sainthelenaisland.info

“Going right round the ridges to get to The Castle.”

Describes taking a long, roundabout way to reach a simple goal, doing something the hard way when a direct path was available — named for the steep ridges surrounding Jamestown's Castle, the seat of Saint Helena's government.

Traditional Saint Helena Wisdom

Source: Saint Helena Island Info, "Speak Saint" — Saint dialect sayings reference, sainthelenaisland.info

“Loyal and unshakeable.”

The official motto of Saint Helena, reflecting the steadfastness and resilience the island's people are known for.

Traditional Saint Helena Wisdom

Source: Coat of Arms of Saint Helena, authorised 30 January 1984, Government of Saint Helena

Qu'est-ce donc que l'histoire en général? Une fable convenue.

“What then is, generally speaking, the truth of history? A fable agreed upon.”

Reflecting in exile, Napoleon suggested that official histories are shaped by consensus and interpretation as much as by fact.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Source: Emmanuel de Las Cases, Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, entry of 20 November 1816

“I may have had many projects, but I was never truly my own master — I was always ruled by circumstances.”

Looking back from his island exile, Napoleon admitted that even at the height of his power, events controlled him as much as his own will did.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Source: Emmanuel de Las Cases, Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, entry of 11 November 1816

“I have fought sixty battles, and I have learned nothing which I did not know at the beginning.”

A rueful admission from exile that experience and victory taught him less about war than he once believed.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Source: Gaspard Gourgaud, Journal de Sainte-Hélène, entry of 25 December 1817

La carrière ouverte aux talents.

“My maxim was: the career open to talents, without distinction of birth or fortune.”

Napoleon described the guiding principle of his rule — that ability and merit, not noble birth, should open the path to advancement.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Source: Barry O'Meara, Napoleon in Exile: A Voice from St. Helena (1822)

“I ought to have died at Waterloo.”

From his final exile, Napoleon reflected that defeat without death on the battlefield left him to face a slower, harder ending.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Source: Emmanuel de Las Cases, Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène (1823)

“I give my decided opposition to all legislation tending to introduce distinctions either of class, colour, or creed.”

Saul Solomon's lifelong political pledge, made as a young candidate and honoured throughout his career in the Cape Parliament, opposing laws that discriminated by race or class.

Saul Solomon

Source: Saul Solomon's Cape Parliament election pledge, as recorded in W. E. G. Solomon, Saul Solomon: "The Member for Cape Town" (1948)

“I am guilty only of being Cetshwayo's son.”

Testifying at his 1908 high treason trial in Natal, the Saint Helena-exiled Zulu king said his only true offence was his royal bloodline — a line still remembered as a statement of defiance against colonial persecution.

Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo

Source: Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo, testimony at the Natal high treason trial, Greytown, 1908 (widely cited in South African historical accounts, e.g. South African History Online)

“I meant that you were a nation of merchants, and that all your great riches and your grand resources arose from commerce. No man of sense ought to be ashamed of being called a shopkeeper.”

Pressed by his St Helena physician about his famous jibe that England was "a nation of shopkeepers," Napoleon clarified he meant it as recognition of British commercial strength, not simple insult.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Source: Barry O'Meara, Napoleon in Exile: A Voice from St. Helena (1822)

“He is hideous; he has a most villainous countenance.”

Napoleon's private verdict on Governor Hudson Lowe after their first meeting at Longwood House on 16 April 1816, the opening note of a bitter five-year relationship between captive and jailer.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Source: Napoleon's remark on first meeting Governor Hudson Lowe, 16 April 1816, as recounted in Napoleonic captivity histories (see napoleon.org, "General Sir Hudson Lowe: Napoleon's Jailer")

“You never commanded any men but Corsican deserters.”

A dismissive jab at Hudson Lowe's earlier command of the Royal Corsican Rangers, part of the long personal feud between the exiled emperor and his island governor.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Source: Napoleon to Governor Hudson Lowe, Longwood House, as recounted in Napoleonic captivity histories (see napoleon.org, "General Sir Hudson Lowe: Napoleon's Jailer")

“Soon you will be sailing away towards England, leaving me to die on this miserable rock.”

Said to his young friend Betsy Balcombe of The Briars, capturing Napoleon's bleak view of Saint Helena as a bare, isolated prison rather than a home.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Source: Betsy Balcombe, Recollections of the Emperor Napoleon (1844)

“Josephine was grace personified; everything she did was marked with it. She never acted inelegantly during the whole time we lived together.”

A rare tender recollection of his first wife, Empress Josephine, shared during quiet conversation with the Balcombe family at The Briars on Saint Helena.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Source: Betsy Balcombe, Recollections of the Emperor Napoleon (1844)

“That cow wished to save the English government the expense and trouble of keeping me.”

Napoleon's dry joke after being charged by an angry cow near The Briars, poking fun at the costly British military effort devoted to guarding a single prisoner.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Source: Betsy Balcombe, Recollections of the Emperor Napoleon (1844)

“An angel from heaven could not have pleased us, had he been governor of Saint Helena.”

Montholon's bitterly ironic verdict on Governor Hudson Lowe, expressing the exiled French household's conviction that no governor could ever have satisfied men who resented their captivity itself.

Charles-Tristan de Montholon

Source: Charles-Tristan de Montholon, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena (1846)

The story of Saint Helena

Saint Helena was uninhabited until Portuguese navigator João da Nova sighted it in 1502 during the return leg of a voyage to Asia, naming it after Saint Helena of Constantinople. For over a century it stayed a secret waypoint used quietly by Portuguese and later Dutch ships. In 1657 Oliver Cromwell granted the English East India Company a charter to fortify and settle the island, and the first governor, Captain John Dutton, arrived in 1659 , making Saint Helena one of Britain's oldest colonial possessions and its English dialect one of the oldest varieties of Southern Hemisphere English still spoken. For four centuries, before the Suez Canal opened in 1869, the island was a vital re-provisioning stop for ships rounding Africa between Europe and Asia. Its most famous chapter began in 1815, when the British chose the remote island to hold the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte, who died there in 1821. The island passed from Company to Crown rule in 1834, later also held Zulu King Dinuzulu and thousands of Boer prisoners of war in exile, and only gained a commercial airport in 2017 , ending centuries of five-day mail-ship isolation.

Timeline — key moments

1502
Portuguese navigator João da Nova sights and names the uninhabited island.
1657
Oliver Cromwell charters the English East India Company to settle and fortify Saint Helena.
1659
First governor, Captain John Dutton, arrives; permanent English settlement begins.
1815
Napoleon Bonaparte is exiled to Saint Helena after his defeat at Waterloo.
1821
Napoleon dies on the island on 5 May, aged 51.
1834
Administration passes from the East India Company to the British Crown.
1890-1898
Exiled Zulu King Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo lives on the island under British custody.
1899-1902
Over 5,000 Boer prisoners of war are held on Saint Helena during the Second Boer War.
1966
The New Zealand flax industry, the island's economic mainstay, collapses.
2017
St Helena Airport opens, connecting the island by air for the first time.

Top 10 things to know about Saint Helena

Saint Helena is one of the most remote inhabited islands on Earth, about 1,950 km from Africa and 4,000 km from South America.
Discovered (by Portuguese record) in 1502 by navigator João da Nova.
Administered by the English East India Company from 1657 until becoming a British Crown Colony in 1834.
Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled here after Waterloo in 1815 and died on the island in 1821.
The island issues its own currency, the Saint Helena pound, pegged 1:1 to sterling.
Home to Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise believed to be the world's oldest living land animal, on the island since 1882.
The wirebird (Saint Helena plover) is the island's only surviving endemic bird and national symbol.
St Helena Airport opened in 2017, ending total reliance on a five-day mail-ship voyage from South Africa.
It forms part of the British Overseas Territory "Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha".
The island once grew some of the world's most exclusive coffee , green-tipped Bourbon Arabica descended from 1700s Yemeni stock, still cultivated today.

Famous people from Saint Helena

Napoleon Bonaparte

Exiled Emperor of France

Held on Saint Helena from 1815 until his death in 1821; originally buried on the island before his remains returned to France in 1840.

Edmond Halley

Astronomer

Charted the southern stars from Saint Helena in 1676-1678, producing the first telescopic catalogue of the southern sky.

Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo

Zulu King

Exiled to Saint Helena by the British from 1890 to 1898.

Thomas Henry BrookeAuthor

Historian

Wrote one of the earliest histories of the island, "A History of the Island of St. Helena" (1808).

Say it in Saint Helena's language

Hello (to a friend or relative)

Lurvy

LUR-vee

How are you?

You good?

Take it easy / no rush

Take it steady

Did you know?

★Jonathan the tortoise has lived on Saint Helena since 1882 and is believed to be the oldest living land animal on Earth.
★Before the airport opened in 2017, the only way to reach Saint Helena was a five-day voyage aboard the RMS St Helena mail ship.
★Napoleon's original burial site on the island is still maintained as a French-owned memorial, even though his remains were moved to Paris in 1840.

Saint Helena culture

English is the sole official language; islanders ("Saints") speak "Saint", a distinct dialect considered one of the oldest varieties of Southern Hemisphere English.
Saints traditionally greet friends and relatives with "lurvy", a local form of the English endearment "luvvy".
Fishing, small-scale farming, and heritage tourism built around Napoleonic sites and endemic wildlife anchor daily island life.
Plantation House, the Governor's official residence, is also home to Jonathan the tortoise, who grazes freely on its lawns.

Why read Saint Helena's books

Saint Helena's written record is small but remarkable: governors' logs, Napoleonic-era memoirs and letters, and early island histories penned by its own colonial chroniclers. Its books shelf gathers that rare literature of the world's most isolated inhabited island.