Quotes & Sayings About Columbus

The thing to keep in mind is that we're still in the very early days when it comes to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Saying there's a silence is a bit like if Columbus, looking to discover a new continent, only sailed 10 miles off the coast of Spain before turning back to say, 'Nothing out there!' — Seth Shostak

My brother was a year younger than I am and he was never in the home with me hardly at all, ... My mom had to take him to every school there possibly was to get him some education. He ended up first in Columbus, Ohio, for grade school, then went to a high school for the deaf and Galludet in Washington. — Les Miles

I was the adoring son of a Welsh-Irish father, a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, a Catholic Knight of Columbus who was a blue-collar, trade union organizer and, not surprisingly, a fervid Nixon-hater. — Bob Gunton

During periods of root expansion things have always looked as confused and topsy-turvy and purposeless as they do now. The whole Renaissance is supposed to have resulted from the topsy-turvy feeling caused by Columbus' discovery of a new world. It just shook people up. The topsy-turviness of that time is recorded everywhere. There was nothing in the flat-earth views of the Old and New Testaments that predicted it. Yet people couldn't deny it. The only way they could assimilate it was to abandon the entire medieval outlook and enter into a new expansion of reason. — Robert M. Pirsig

I saw a boy of the crew purchasing javelins of them with bits of platters and broken glass. — Christopher Columbus

Cherishing Columbus is a characteristic of white history, not American history. — James W. Loewen

It is remarkable that when great discoveries are effected, their simplicity always seems to detract from their originality: on these occasions we are reminded of the egg of Columbus! — Benjamin Disraeli

People have called Christopher Columbus horrible, racist, a psycho-maniac killer and a slave owner. — Rush Limbaugh

Christopher Columbus, who said to Queen Isabella, No, you got it wrong! The world is round. You're flat! Never got a dinner! — Red Buttons

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

"Thanks be to God," says the Admiral, "the air is soft as in April in Seville, and it is a pleasure to be in it, so fragrant it is." — Christopher Columbus

I painted the Astor-Victoria sign seven times, and it's 395 feet wide and 58 feet high. I dropped a gallon of purple paint on Seventh Avenue and 47th Street from 15 stories up and didn't kill anybody. I dropped a brush at Columbus Circle. It fell on a guy's camel-hair coat. — James Rosenquist

Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians. — Bertrand Russell

You stay with the foundation and then you just try different things because you don't know how the director will cut it and you want to give him, what will work, and you want to give him some options, give yourself some options, discover some things when you start to play. That's what we do; we get paid to play. — Columbus Short

My litmus test of compatibility is 'Tom Cruise.' I hate people who hate Tom Cruise, cultural automatons who at the mention of his name reflexively bridle and say the diminutive thespian and Theta level Scientoligist is 'crazy' and 'a terrible actor'. They hate him because he's easy to hate. They think that despising Tom Cruise's lack of personality and supposed lack of talent is somehow a blow against the bland American Anschluss of the rest of the planet. Tom Cruise may indeed be the Christopher Columbus of the twentieth century, sent off by the kings of Hollywood to prove the new world of International Box Office isn't flat and to find a direct route into the Asian market, but the decline of everything isn't his fault; he's just a cinematic explorer and a damn fine actor. And hating him doesn't make you seditious- it makes you complicit. — Paul Beatty

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

Leif Ericson discovered Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland, some 500 years before Columbus discovered America. Ericson sailed south along the Eastern Coast of America as far as Maine and perhaps beyond." Captain Hank Bracker — Hank Bracker

I don't want to do action that doesn't mean anything. Everything I do I want to have character development and three-dimensional characters, fallible humans, and this is definitely one of them. — Columbus Short

Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The leader of an Earth organization who makes a commitment to history - of humans living on Earth, to begin permanent settlement/occupation of not the moon, but of another planet - this leader will have a legacy for history that will supersede Columbus, Genghis Khan or almost any recognized leader. — Buzz Aldrin

It's feasible that we'll meet other sentient life forms and conduct commerce with them. We don't now have the technology to physically travel outside our solar system for such an exchange to take place, but we are like Columbus centuries ago, learning fast how to get somewhere few think possible. — Dimitar Sasselov

Nothing that results in human progress is achieved with unanimous consent. Those that are enlightened before the others are condemned to pursue that light in spite of the others. — Christopher Columbus

Shaquille and I kind of joke we were the Christopher Columbus of social media. We're kind of out on a boat by ourselves going through these uncharted waters. But it's become more understood, embraced and accepted, and now it's pretty much expected by fans for athletes, leagues and teams to be there. — Amy Jo Martin

I may well be a flop at this line of endeavor. Columbus too thought he was a flop, probably, when they sent him back in chains. Which didn't prove there was no America. — Saul Bellow

In 1992, teachers all over the country, by the thousands, were beginning to teach the Columbus story in new ways, to recognize that to Native Americans, Columbus and his men were not heroes, but marauders. The point being not just to revise our view of past events, but to be provoked to think about today. — Howard Zinn

Nothing important was ever accomplished without chutzpah. Columbus had chutzpah. The signers of the Declaration of Independence had chutzpah. Don't ever aim doubt at yourself. Laugh at yourself, but don't doubt yourself. — Alan Alda

In fact, all known societies above the very primitive level have been slave societies - even many of the Northwest American Indian tribes had slaves long before Columbus's voyage.46 Amid this universal slavery, only one civilization ever rejected human bondage: Christendom. And it did it twice! — Rodney Stark

Herein is the explanation of the analogies, which exist in all the arts. They are the re-appearance of one mind, working in many materials to many temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom, Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting was called "silent poetry," and poetry "speaking painting." The laws of each art are convertible into the laws of every other. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime. According to some ancient manuscripts 9 is not a prime number, but beyond the distant horizon of the oceans, in the New World that I am going to discover, there are surely lots of them. — Christopher Columbus

and the inhabitants of Hispaniola, and other parts of the West Indies, when found out by Columbus, which abounded with gold mines, declared that they found by experience that the vein of gold is a living tree, (and — John Gill

Your failure is measured by your aspirations. Aspire not, and you cannot fail. Columbus died in chains. Joan or Arc was burned at the stake. Let us all live snugly -- and life will soon be little more than a thick, gelatinous stream of comfortability and ignorance. — Myles Connolly

I propose to construct a new chart for navigating, on which I shall delineate all the sea and lands of the Ocean in their proper positions under their bearings; and further, I propose to prepare a book, and to put down all as it were in a picture, by latitude from the equator, and western longitude. — Christopher Columbus

strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought — Howard Zinn

The President wants to talk about a terrorist named bin Laden. I don't want to talk about bin Laden. I want to talk about a terrorist called Christopher Columbus. I want to talk about a terrorist called George Washington. I want to talk about a terrorist called Rudy Giuliani. The real terrorists have always been the United Snakes of America. — Malik Zulu Shabazz

It is impossible not to feel stirred at the thought of the emotions of man at certain historic moments of adventure and discovery - Columbus when he first saw the Western shore, Pizarro when he stared at the Pacific Ocean, Franklin when the electric spark came from the string of his kite, Galileo when he first turned his telescope to the heavens. Such moments are also granted to students in the abstract regions of thought, and high among them must be placed the morning when Descartes lay in bed and invented the method of co-ordinate geometry. — Alfred North Whitehead

I have come to believe that this is a mighty continent which was hitherto unknown. — Christopher Columbus

You know what I'm realizing now?" he said to her. "What?" she asked, looking at him adoringly. "We are sitting in the center of the world." She laughed. "You're so funny." "No, think about it," he said. "Columbus Circle is the center of Manhattan. Manhattan is the center of New York. New York is the center of America, and America is the center of the world. So we are sitting in the center of the world, right? — Imbolo Mbue

Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. — L. Frank Baum

We believe what we see.
So did Columbus. What do you do when you're in the dark? — Yann Martel

But in truth, should I meet with gold or spices in great quantity, I shall remain till I collect as much as possible, and for this purpose I am proceeding solely in quest of them. — Christopher Columbus

If and when all the laws governing physical phenomena are finally discovered, and all the empirical constants occurring in these laws are finally expressed through the four independent basic constants, we will be able to say that physical science has reached its end, that no excitement is left in further explorations, and that all that remains to a physicist is either tedious work on minor details or the self-educational study and adoration of the magnificence of the completed system. At that stage physical science will enter from the epoch of Columbus and Magellan into the epoch of the National Geographic Magazine! — George Gamow

Every schoolchild knows that Columbus set out across the sea to prove that the world was round. But the belief in a spherical earth had a long and illustrious pedigree, as Columbus himself was well aware ... "The second reason that inspired the Admiral [Columbus] to launch his enterprise and helped justify his giving the name 'Indies' to the lands which he discovered was the authority of many learned men who said that one could sail westward from the western end of Africa and Spain to the eastern end of India, and that no great sea lay between." — Ferdinand Columbus

Columbus therefore cheated on his calculations, as the examining faculty of the University of Salamanca quite correctly pointed out. He used the smallest possible circumference of the Earth and the greatest eastward extension of Asia he could find in all the books available to him, and then exaggerated even those. Had the Americas not been in the way, Columbus' expeditions would have failed utterly. — Carl Sagan

Chris Columbus was really interesting to watch how he works with children. — David R. Ellis

The Jew is neither a newcomer nor an alien in this country or on this continent; his Americanism is as original and ancient as that of any race or people with the exception of the American Indian and other aborigines. He came in the caravels of Columbus, and he knocked at the gates of New Amsterdam only thirty-five years after the Pilgrim Fathers stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock. — Oscar Straus

It is hoped that by God's assistance, some of the continents in the Ocean will be discovered ... for the Glory of God. — Christopher Columbus

To find anything comparable with our forthcoming ventures into space, we must go back far beyond Columbus, far beyond Odysseus-far, indeed, beyond the first ape-man. We must contemplate the moment, now irrevocably lost in the mists of time, when the ancestor off all of us came crawling out of the sea. — Arthur C. Clarke

A great many men
some comparatively small men now
if put in the right position, would be Luthers and Columbuses. — Edwin Hubbel Chapin

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

I've always had strong ties with Delhi, and I do stay in touch with my friends and periodically visit the capital. I started my schooling at St. Columbus High School before I went to Mayo College. Delhi, for me, is a historical city with all its beautiful monuments. — Ajay Mehta

Against Amerigo Vespucci no such charges of immorality, cruelty, and bigotry can be brought as against Columbus, and the sole accusation against him, of falsifying the date of his "first" voyage, has not been sustained by the evidence. — Frederick A. Ober

Everybody who knows me is like, 'Dude, you've got to chill out.' I can't not work, given where I want to be. — Columbus Short

be neither unduly credulous nor wholly disbelieving for the Indies would have gone undiscovered if no one believed Columbus — Richard Stanyhurst

Columbus not only sent the first slaves acroiss the Atlantic, he sent more slaves than any other individual — James W. Loewen

I'm a Buckeye at heart. I spend more time giving concerts in Ohio than I do in any other state - perhaps more time than I spend performing anywhere else in the world. I have a great relationship with the people of Ohio, and it's great to be near the OSU when I come to Columbus. — Al Jarreau

No one should fear to undertake any task in the name of our Saviour, if it is just and if the intention is purely for His holy service. — Christopher Columbus

Once we had a rail station in Montgomery that connected to Columbus and went all the way up to Virginia, slave traders could transport thousands of slaves at a fraction of the cost than they could transport by boat, and certainly by foot. And that's how Montgomery became such an active slave-trading space. — Bryan Stevenson

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

Columbus has the standing egg, Tesla has the electromagnetic egg and Magee has the irradiated egg. — Steven Magee

In the narrative of his third voyage Columbus wrote: "For I believe that the earthly Paradise lies here, which no one can enter except by God's leave." As for the people of this land, Peter Martyr would write as early as 1505: "They seem to live in that golden world of which old writers speak so much, wherein men lived simply and innocently without enforcement of laws, without quarreling, judges, or libels, content only to satisfy nature." Or as the ever present Montaigne would write: "In my opinion, what we actually see in these nations not only surpasses all the pictures which the poets have drawn of the Golden Age, and all their inventions representing the then happy state of mankind, but also the conception and desire of philosophy itself. — Paul Auster

Every ship that comes to America got its chart from Columbus. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The only history is a mere question of one's struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do. — D.H. Lawrence

I remember a song we used to sing, "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean." But I thought it was, "Columbus, Jump in the Ocean. — Lisa See

In all parts of the Old World, as well as of the New, it was evident that Columbus had kindled a fire in every mariner's heart. That fire was the harbinger of a new era, for it was not to be extinguished. — Charles Kendall Adams

This is largely the methodology I've used throughout my career - that is, starting with a question as to what might be the properties of a set of compounds that could be invented which were unusual and unpredictable. Many times I've felt a bit like Columbus setting sail. — Donald Cram

I love it. It's all good to me. Whether I'm performing in New York, L.A., Columbus or Des Moines, I give 110 percent every night. — Bret Michaels

Because of Columbus's exaggerated report and promises, his second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men. The aim was clear: slaves and gold. They went from island to island in the Caribbean, taking Indians as captives. But as word spread of the Europeans' intent they found more and more empty villages. On Haiti, they found that the sailors left behind at Fort Navidad had been killed in a battle with the Indians, after they had roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor. — Howard Zinn

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore." Christopher Columbus — Tomer Peled

My desire was not to pass any island without taking possession, so that, one having been taken, the same may be said of all. — Christopher Columbus

I ordered each man to be presented with something, as strings of ten or a dozen glass beads apiece, and thongs of leather, all which they estimated highly; those which came on board I directed should be fed with molasses. — Christopher Columbus

I'll follow him to the ends of the earth,' she sobbed. Yes, darling. But the earth doesn't have any ends. Columbus fixed that. — Tom Robbins

Whenever I played Columbus, Ohio, I dropped in to see my close friend, a medium who had mysterious powers. Her Indian guide was Mohawk. — Ethel Waters

Sometimes you just can't be afraid to wear a different hat. If Columbus had complied, this whole world might still be flat. — Garth Brooks

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

As we speak, that is what we are doing. Projects that come to you are not written for you. We have to take a lesson from Will Smith, who develops projects he can shine in. We're trying to develop things from the ground up. — Columbus Short

At Columbus Circle, a juggler wearing a trench cloak and top hat, who is usually at this location afternoons and who calls himself Stretch Man, performs in front of a small, uninterested crowd; though I smell prey, and he seems worthy of my wrath, I move on in search of a less dorky target. Though if he'd been a mime, odds are he'd already be dead. — Bret Easton Ellis

This is a place that was "discovered" by a dude who didn't know how to read a map, so he just showed up on some shore, thought he was in India, and then proceeded to plant a flag there, like, "TA-DA." No, sir, no. What Christopher Columbus's goofass needed was a compass and a clue for being so aggressively mediocre, but that dude has a federal holiday in his honor. He showed up on someone else's property and claimed it as his because he didn't know what it was. This country started off all the way wrong and continued in the same fashion. Chris — Luvvie Ajayi

It's a funny thing. I'll be in my home town of Columbus at a restaurant or something, and the waiter maybe asks, 'What do you do?' and I say, 'Oh, I'm in a band ... Twenty One Pilots,' and he'll say, 'Cool, I'll check it out. I never heard of them.' And then I say, 'In September we're playing the Schottenstein Center,' and it's like, 'What?!' — Tyler Joseph

Pete Dye introduced me to golf course design back in the 1960's. He came to my hometown Columbus, Ohio to work on The Golf Club. — Jack Nicklaus

Christopher Columbus was looking for a passage to India, but he landed in America. He landed in the wrong place, and when he got back, he wasn't sure where he'd been. But most important of all, he did it on someone else's money. — Ronald Reagan

Riches don't make a man rich, they only make him busier. — Christopher Columbus

Columbus was born around 1492. I say around because before that the world was flat. My stomach also used to be flat, but now it looks like a globe is about to be born. — Jarod Kintz

Referring to the NFL Players' Association: I have one thing to say about the union: It's like Christopher Columbus. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know where he was when he got there. He lost two-thirds of his ships along the way. And he did it with someone else's money. — Matt Bahr

Quit playing Marco Polo with my ass, Christopher Columbus. This isn't an exploration, so you aren't putting your ding dong in this donut hole — B.B. Reid

Perchance, coming generations will not abide the dissolution of the globe, but, availing themselves of future inventions in aerial locomotion, and the navigation of space, the entire race may migrate from the earth, to settle some vacant and more western planet ... It took but little art, a simple application of natural laws, a canoe, a paddle, and a sail of matting, to people the isles of the Pacific, and a little more will people the shining isles of space. Do we not see in the firmament the lights carried along the shore by night, as Columbus did? Let us not despair or mutiny. — Henry David Thoreau

There were no mail-order catalogues in 1492. Marco Polo's journal was the wish book of Renaissance Europe. Then, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and landed in Sears' basement. Despite all the Indians on the escalator, Columbus' visit came to be known as a discovery. — Tom Robbins

I remember my first run-in with cops. It took me really getting to hang, well after that, with cops who were cool, and realizing, 'Okay, there are some bad ones.' I ran into some bad ones in Columbus, Ohio, but they're not all bad. — Woody Harrelson

If Columbus in an island of America had not caught the disease, which poisons the source of generation, and often indeed prevents generation, we should not have chocolate and cochineal — Voltaire

America had many other discoverers besides Columbus, but he seems to have made more satisfactory arrangements with the historians than any of the others. — Bill Nye

Christopher Columbus, as everyone knows, is honored by posterity because he was the last to discover America. — James Joyce

Anyone who lives in her own world is crazy. Like schizophrenics, psychopaths, maniacs. I mean people who are different from others.'
Like you?'
On the other hand,' Zedka continued, pretending not to have heard the remark, 'you have Einstein, saying that there was no time or space, just a combination of the two. Or Columbus, insisting that on the other side of the world lay not an abyss but a continent. Or Edmund Hillary, convinced that a man could reach the top of Everest. Or the Beatles, who created an entirely different sort of music and dressed like people from another time. Those people
and thousands of others
all lived in their own world. — Paulo Coelho

Their houses are all built in the shape of tents, with very high chimneys. — Christopher Columbus

As a writer, Chris Columbus was a big influence. 'The Goonies' was the first movie I ever saw that kids speak normally and not imagined how kids would talk. Always a big fan of Chris Columbus' dialogue and storytelling. — Adam Green

And they know neither sect nor idolatry, with the exception that all believe that the source of all power and goodness is in the sky, and they believe very firmly that I, with these ships and people, came from the sky, and in this belief they everywhere received me, after they had overcome their fear. — Christopher Columbus

A hundred castellanoes are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten are now in demand. — Christopher Columbus

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

Christopher Columbus introduced two phenomena that revolutionized race relations and transformed the modern world: the taking of land, wealth, and labor from indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere, leading to their near extermination, and the transatlantic slave trade, which created a racial underclass. — James W. Loewen

Do you think, if Columbus had stood on the bow of his ship, looked at the New World and understood everything to come, all the disease and death and betrayal, all the ugliness, all the blood - do you think he would have embraced it, called it paradise? — Catherynne M Valente

America is now a space-faring nation. a frontier good for millions of years. The only time remotely comparable was when Columbus discovered a whole new world. — James Smith McDonnell

Your Highnesses have an Other World here, by which our holy faith can be so greatly advanced and from which such great wealth can be drawn. — Christopher Columbus