Columbus Day Quotes & Sayings

Columbus was an Abraham, for he went out not knowing whither he went. Columbus was a Moses, for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Only the man of faith is the man of power. Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible. God grant that to-day in that bark we may be wafted by God's blessing, and may land at last on the shores of Heaven, where we shall sing a sweeter Te Deum than that which awoke the echoes on the soil of virgin America, or those amid the splendors of the court at Barcelona. — Robert Stuart MacArthur

In 1492, the natives discovered they were indians, discovered they lived in America, discovered they were naked, discovered that the Sin existed, discovered they owed allegiance to a King and Kingdom from another world and a God from another sky, and that this God had invented the guilty and the dress, and had sent to be burnt alive who worships the Sun the Moon the Earth and the Rain that wets it. — Eduardo Galeano

It's Thursday, March twenty-ninth!" she basically screamed, a demented smile plastered to her face. "You are really excited about knowing the date!" I yelled back. "HAZEL! IT'S YOUR THIRTY-THIRD HALF BIRTHDAY!" "Ohhhhhh," I said. My mom was really super into celebration maximization. IT'S ARBOR DAY! LET'S HUG TREES AND EAT CAKE! COLUMBUS BROUGHT SMALLPOX TO THE NATIVES; WE SHALL RECALL THE OCCASION WITH A PICNIC!, etc. — John Green

I grew up in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio, in the early '90s, and hospitals and doctor's offices offered to x-ray candy. I was 7 or 8. The day after Halloween, my brother and I were sorting all of our candy, and my mom asked if she could have a piece of my gum. She put the gum in her mouth, bit down, and there was a shard of metal in it! — Cory Michael Smith

For this purpose I determined to keep an account of the voyage, and to write down punctually every thing we performed or saw from day to day, as will hereafter appear. — Christopher Columbus

I don't know if it was a defining moment. I knew it as soon as I could comprehend the possibility of having a career. I knew very young I wanted to be a movie star. As much as I grew into love of the craft. As soon as I could speak I was auditioning and going to classes every day. It was my life. — Columbus Short

The Indians on board said that thence to Cuba was a voyage in their canoes of a day and a half; these being small dug-outs without a sail. Such are their canoes. I departed thence for Cuba, for by the signs the Indians made of its greatness, and of its gold and pearls, I thought that it must be Cipango. — Christopher Columbus

The Columbus Day Parade was held Monday in New York. Columbus was the world's first Democrat. He left not knowing where he was going, arrived not knowing where he was, went home not knowing where he had been, and he did it all on government money. — Argus Hamilton

The spirit of Columbus hovers over us to-day. — Chauncey Depew

Suddenly, it seems ridiculous that we just came from a city airport named for Columbus, a terrible navigator who insisted to his dying day that he was in India - which is why people here are called Indians. As the Native women in Houston said, It could have been worse - he could have thought he was in Turkey. — Gloria Steinem

I'm Irish on St. Patrick's Day. I'm Italian on Columbus Day. I'm a New Yorker every day. — Tamara Tunie

Let's assume it was Christopher Columbus's "destiny" to discover the New World, and let's pretend he was consciously aware of that fact. What possible difference would that have made in his day-to-day life? He still had to build the boats. — Chuck Klosterman

My mother-in-law, Nanny, spent her working years as a bookkeeper at a medical office in Columbus, Ohio. Like so many Americans, she worked hard and paid into Medicare, knowing that one day she could count on having high-quality health care when she needed it most. — Ann McLane Kuster

Sailed this day nineteen leagues, and determined to count less than the true number, that the crew might not be dismayed if the voyage should prove long. — Christopher Columbus

Columbus's real achievement was managing to cross the ocean successfully in both directions. Though an accomplished enough mariner, he was not terribly good at a great deal else, especially geography, the skill that would seem most vital in an explorer. It would be hard to name any figure in history who has achieved more lasting fame with less competence. He spent large parts of eight years bouncing around Caribbean islands and coastal South America convinced that he was in the heart of the Orient and that Japan and China were at the edge of every sunset. He never worked out that Cuba is an island and never once set foot on, or even suspected the existence of, the landmass to the north that everyone thinks he discovered: the United States. — Bill Bryson

I went to sea from the most tender age and have continued in a sea life to this day. Whoever gives himself up to this art wants to know the secrets of Nature here below. It is more than forty years that I have been thus engaged. Wherever any one has sailed, there I have sailed. — Christopher Columbus

Advice to explorers everywhere: if you would like to recieve due credit for your discoveries, keep a detailed account of your journeys as Columbus did. On Septemeber 28, 1492, after four weeks at sea, he writes: Dear diary ... I means journal. Yes, dear journal. That's what I meant to say. Whew. Anyway, we have yet to discover America, and the crew has become increasingly rebellious. I have decided to turn back if we have not spotted it by Columbus Day. Will write again later if not killed by crew. P.S. Last night's buffet was fabulous, the ice sculptures magnificent. — Cuthbert Soup

I also hate those holidays that fall on a Monday where you don't get mail, those fake holidays like Columbus Day. What did Christopher Columbus do, discover America? If he hadn't, somebody else would have and we'd still be here. Big deal. — John Waters

I just want to remind everybody that it's Columbus Day. That all those of you that know Italians and like Italians are the people that might venture on to a ship and travel to explore and find new lands, this is your day. It's not St. Patty's Day. That's a different day entirely. — Les Miles

When Columbus took off, the purpose was to improve trade relations with China. That problem has not been solved to this very day, but just look at the by-products. — Edward Teller

In 1846 on of his Academy exhibits was a painting called The Angel Standing in the Sun. Turner found this passage for the Academy catalogue in the Book of Revelation:
And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, both free and bond, both small and great.
To reinforce the note of voracious doom, he added two lines from Samuel Rogers' Voyage of Columbus:
The morning march that flashes to the sun;
The feast of vultures when the day is done. — Anthony Bailey

It's like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of shit is that, but white people's shit? — Miles Davis

Should we stop celebrating the Columbus day - the day when the first illegal immigrants entered America? — Evgeni Kostitsyn

The history taught in our schools is scandalous. We grew up believing that Columbus actually discovered America. We still celebrate Columbus Day. Columbus was after one thing only - gold. — Woody Harrelson

Do you think we care about the feelings of Native Americans when we celebrate Columbus Day? That's the day that the white man discovered a land where Indians had been living for a few thousand years. — Carlos Mencia

Marriage commissioners who choose not to marry homosexuals are being fired. A Knights of Columbus chapter in British Columbia is in court because it chooses not allow a lesbian group to use its facility for marriage ceremonies. The list goes on. — Stockwell Day

Columbus Day is still a federal holiday despite Columbus never having set foot on any territory ever claimed by the United States. — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Be a Columbus smell the fragrance of the new lands and discover them. — Amit Ray

He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another world, and he discovered it; Copernicus fostered the vision of a multiplicity of worlds and a wider universe, and he revealed it; Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and perfect peace, and he entered into it. — James Allen

The Ruhar hit us on Columbus Day. There we were, innocently drifting along the cosmos on our little blue marble, like the native Americans in 1492. Over the horizon come ships of a technologically advanced, aggressive culture, and BAM! There go the good old days, when humans only got killed by each other. — Craig Alanson

I first saw Arnold Palmer when I was just a kid and he came to Columbus to play in a tournament. I watched him on the driving range hit balls that day. We went on to become great friends. — Jack Nicklaus

Holidays - -such as Columbus Day - to be celebrated by all Protestants in America; thirty million dollars worth of church property exempted from taxation in New — Upton Sinclair

A nation is only an individual multiplied. It makes plans and Circumstances comes and upsets them - or enlarges them. Some patriots throw the tea overboard; some other patriots destroy a Bastille. The PLANS stop there; then Circumstance comes in, quite unexpectedly, and turns these modest riots into a revolution.
And there was poor Columbus. He elaborated a deep plan to find a new route to an old country. Circumstance revised his plan for him, and he found a new WORLD. And HE gets the credit of it to this day. He hadn't anything to do with it. — Mark Twain

If Congress can move President's Day, Columbus Day and, alas, Martin Luther King's Birthday celebration for the convenience of shoppers, shouldn't they at least consider moving Election Day for the convenience of voters? — Andrew Young

Each day we understand better what the Indians say, and they us, so that very often we are intelligible to each other. — Christopher Columbus