Cortes S Quotes & Sayings

The city is as large as Seville or Cordova; its streets, I speak of the principal ones, are very wide and straight; some of these, and all the inferior ones, are half land and half water, and are navigated by canoes. — Hernan Cortes

The meals were served in a large hall, in which Moctezuma was accustomed to eat, and the dishes quite filled the room, which was covered with mats and kept very clean. — Hernan Cortes

It's a great historical joke that when the Spanish met the Aztecs, it was a blind date made in serve-you-right heaven. At the time, they were the two most unpleasant cultures in the entire world, and richly deserved each other. Still, the story of how stout Cortes blustered, bullied and bludgeoned his way to collapsing an entire empire with a handful of contagious hoodlums is astonishing. — A.A. Gill

The divine drink which builds up resistance and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink permits a man to walk for a whole day without food. — Hernando Cortes

We Spaniards know a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure. — Hernan Cortes

After landing his invasion forces on the shores of some country, the sixteenth-century Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes would immediately burn his own boats. He was sending his army a message: "We can't turn back. Either we succeed here or we die here." Excuses were not an option. — Lou Holtz

A shrewd notary from Extremadura, turned colonist and adventurer, and a one-armed ex-privateer from Limehouse, in the county of Middlesex. Eighty-seven years separate the expeditions, led by Hernan Cortes and Captain Christopher Newport receptively, that laid the foundation of the empires of Spain and Britain on the mainland of America. — J.H. Elliott

Catholicity seized on man ... and the mystics, transcending all, taught him to ascend on high with the wings of contemplation the Ladder of Jacob composed of brilliant stones, by which God descends to Earth and man ascends to Heaven, till Earth and Heaven, and God and man, burning together in a conflagration of infinite charity, are transmuted into one. — Juan Donoso Cortes

Hope is like a needle in a haystack. No matter how small, and even if you can't find it, it's there. It may just take another set of eyes. — Mark Cortes

Comprehending and knowing better and deeper are the best guarantees we can have to attain ideas and criteria of our own; i.e. to stop depending on what other people say. In summary, to be freer to choose our own path in life. — Manuel Toharia-Cortes

Anyone who writes is too precious to lose. — Carlos J. Cortes

This city has many public squares, in which are situated the markets and other places for buying and selling. — Hernan Cortes

They no longer had nor could find any arrows, javelins or stones with which to attack us ... — Hernando Cortes

Taking it as a whole, Mexico is a grand city, and, as Cortes truly said, its situation is marvellous. — Edward Burnett Tylor

An abundant supply of excellent water, forming a volume equal in bulk to the human body, is conveyed by one of these pipes, and distributed about the city, where it is used by the inhabitants for drink and other purposes. — Hernan Cortes

He travels safest in the dark night who travels lightest. — Hernan Cortes

The priests are debarred from female society, nor is any woman permitted to enter the religious houses. — Hernan Cortes

Then felt I like like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Like stout Cortes when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific-and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise
Silent upon a peak in Darien — John Keats

We know of no other event like it in the history of the world, except perhaps the first confrontation in Europe between the neolithic peoples who came from the East and the primitive hunters. But no witness ever wrote of that great drama. — Jean-Marie G. Le Clezio

So loud was the wailing of the women and children that there was not one man among us whose heart did not bleed at the sound ... — Hernando Cortes

Thus they have an idol that they petition for victory in war; another for success in their labors; and so for everything in which they seek or desire prosperity, they have their idols, which they honor and serve. — Hernan Cortes

In the constitution of Spain as proposed by the late Cortes, there was a principle entirely new to me: ... that no person born after that day should ever acquire the rights of citizenship until he could read and write. It is impossible sufficiently to estimate the wisdom of this provision. Of all those which have been thought of for securing fidelity in the administration of the government, constant reliance to the principles of the constitution, and progressive amendments with the progressive advances of the human mind or changes in human affairs, it is the most effectual. — Thomas Jefferson

The human species' foremost task and unshakable duty is survival. — Carlos J. Cortes

It was so wonderful that I do not know how to describe this first glimpse of things never heard of, seen or dreamed of before ... — Hernando Cortes

I and my companions suffer from a disease of the heart which can be cured only with gold. — Hernando Cortes

Among these temples there is one which far surpasses all the rest, whose grandeur of architectural details no human tongue is able to describe; for within its precincts, surrounded by a lofty wall, there is room enough for a town of five hundred families. — Hernan Cortes

There are only two possible forms of control: one internal and the other external; religious control and political control. They are of such a nature that when the religious barometer rises, the barometer of [external, i.e., political control] falls and likewise, when the religious barometer falls, the political barometer, that is political control and tyranny, rises. That is the law of humanity, a law of history. If civilized man falls into disbelief and immorality, the way is prepared for some gigantic and colossal tyrant, universal and immense. — Juan Donoso Cortes

There are apothecaries' shops, where prepared medicines, liquids, ointments, and plasters are sold; barbers' shops, where they wash and shave the head; and restaurateurs, that furnish food and drink at a certain price. — Hernan Cortes

Worrying about something you can't control has less benefit than a mosquito's existence. — Mark Cortes

What men in all the world have shown such daring? — Hernando Cortes

Tables of Contents Introduction Chapter 1 Bonjour, France! Chapter 2 Numbers and Gender Chapter 3 Plural Forms of Nouns Chapter 4 Pronouns Chapter 5 Verbs Chapter 6 Prepositions Chapter 7 Useful Expressions Preview Of'Spanish For Beginners' Check Out My Other Books Conclusion — Manuel De Cortes

A small step toward recovery is giant progress. — Mark Cortes

From that imbalance rose the tragic results of the coming together of two worlds. It was the extermination of an ancient dream by the frenzy of a modern one, the destruction of myths by a desire for power. It was gold, modern weapons, and rational thought pitted against magic and gods: the outcome could not have been otherwise. — Jean-Marie G. Le Clezio

It is the mythical, the romantic seduction of the pseudoknowledge, i.e. the folkore - both popular and scientific - that propagates quickly and easily through society, hiding and diminishing the powerful reality of what the new ideas and technologies can offer to humanity. — Manuel Toharia-Cortes

Furthermore, they had calculated that if 25,000 of them died for every one of us, they would finish with us first, for they were many and we were but few. — Hernando Cortes

There are fully forty towers, which are lofty and well built, the largest of which has fifty steps leading to its main body, and is higher than the tower of the principal tower of the church at Seville. — Hernan Cortes