Captain Cook's Quotes & Sayings

I've found out that Malakula was named by Captain James Cook. It comes from the French mal au cul which means 'pain in the arse' after Cook found it difficult to deal with cannibals, volcanoes and other annoying features. It's good to know proper explorers sometimes share the feelings I have on my travels. — Karl Pilkington

The gallant captain vacated his cabin for her, and Manna changed her role from cook to chaperone. All most correct. But it was hardly the done thing to cadge a lift on a torpedo boat. Yet she did it twice in a lifetime. — Mary Allsebrook

Nicholas had not seen such a look of unwelcome surprise on his captain's face since the time their former cook announced he had served the crew stewed rat instead of salted beef. — Alexandra Bracken

If you're the cook," he said between mouthfuls, "I'm your captain. You can't continue speaking to me that way."
"You aren't dressed like a captain."
Gray looked down at his homespun tunic and the loose-fitting trousers cinched with a knotted cord. The clothes of a common seaman,, borrowed from a sailor now dead. He hadn't the luxury of fine attire on the Kestrel. With the ship so undermanned, he had to be everywhere-climbing the rigging, down in the hold.
"Don't look apologetic. They suit you." Her gaze glanced off his shoulders, then dropped to the floor. "But I see you've kept the detested boots."
He shrugged, spooning up another bite of chowder. "I've broken them in now."
"And here I hoped you were keeping them for sentimental reasons. — Tessa Dare

Most of the southern hemisphere is unexplored. We had more exploration ships down there during Captain Cook's time than now. It's amazing. — Robert Ballard

Poor Cook, thought Captain, I must be kinder to her. She makes a splendid pet. How faithful she is! I always say you can't get the same love from a dog that you can from a human. So clever, too. I believe she understands every word I say. I believe they have souls, just like dogs. It's uncanny how canine a human can be, if you are kind to them and treat them well. I know for a fact that when some dogs in history died, their humans lay down on the grave and howled all night and refused food and pined away. It was just instinct, of course, not real intelligence, but all the same it makes you think. I believe that when a human does, it goes to a special heaven for humans, with kind dogs to look after it. — T.H. White

Captain Cook discovered Australia looking for the Terra Incognita. Christopher Columbus thought he was finding India but discovered America. History is full of events that happened because of an imaginary tale. — Umberto Eco

One might almost say that the history of geographical discovery, properly so called, begins with Captain Cook, the motive of whose voyages was purely scientific curiosity. — Joseph Jacobs

Was Cook's ship a scientific expedition protected by a military force or a military expedition with a few scientists tagging along? That's like asking whether your petrol tank is half empty or half full. It was both. The Scientific Revolution and modern imperialism were inseparable. People such as Captain James Cook and the botanist Joseph Banks could hardly distinguish science from empire. — Yuval Noah Harari

Damn, but it was a night, Ned! Now, not to be outdone, it appears our reverend mother Hayes is inspired by Captain Cook's latest voyage to the South Pacific."
"I give the woman credit for creativity." Ned laughed. "Have you read John Hawkesworth's account of the voyage?"
Ludovic's brows lifted ever so slightly. "Come now, Ned, do I truly look like a man who entertains himself with books? — Victoria Vane

I ... had ambition not only to go farther than anyone had done before," wrote Captain James Cook, the eighteenth-century explorer of the Pacific, "but as far as it was possible for man to go." Two centuries later, Yuri Romanenko, on returning to Earth after what was then the longest space flight in history, said "The Cosmos is a magnet ... Once you've been there, all you can think of is how to get back. — Carl Sagan

You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn't come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a wan, sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now. On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food. And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it. — Jerome K. Jerome

You're either my ship's cook-and then you were treated handsome-or Cap'n Silver, a common mutineer and pirate, and then you can go hang! — Robert Louis Stevenson

Captain James Cook's ship, The Endeavour, hit a coral outcrop in the Great Barrier Reef in 1770. Cook and his crew camped in what is now called Cooktown for nearly two months while making repairs. Then they sailed south, where Cook claimed the east coast of Australia as British territory. — Julie Murphy

ground-nuts to keep you alive till I return. If any of you do not know how to clean and cook them, Captain Grant will show you. I promise you I will have all the food you want at this place — Michael Joseph Canavan

Oh, bullshit. This isn't one of those stories, Avice. One moment of cack-handedness, Captain Cook offends the bloody locals, one slip of the tongue or misuse of sacred cutlery, and bang, he's on the grill. Do you ever think about how self-aggrandising that stuff is? Oh, all those stories pretending to be mea culpas about cultural insensitivity, oops, we said the wrong thing, but they're really all about how ridiculous natives overreact. Avice, we must have made thousands of fuckups like that over the years. Think about it. Just like our visitors did when they first met our lot, on Terre. And for the most part we didn't lose our shit, did we? — China Mieville

Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold,
And the mate of the Nancybrig,
And a bos'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig! — W.S. Gilbert