15th-century Explorer Quotes

Christopher Columbus
Hernán Cortés
Amerigo Vespucci
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
Duarte Pacheco Pereira

Gold is the most precious of all commodities; gold constitutes treasure, and he who possesses it has all he needs in the world, as also the means of rescuing souls from purgatory, and restoring them to the enjoyment of paradise.

Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
[The Aztecs] said that by no means would they give themselves up, for as long as one of them was left he would die fighting, and that we would get nothing of theirs because they would burn everything or throw it into the water.

Hernán Cortés
Hernán Cortés
And beyond what has been said, experience, which is the mother of all things, undeceives us and removes all our doubts.

Duarte Pacheco Pereira
Duarte Pacheco Pereira
One thing I supplicate your majesty: that you will give orders, under a great penalty, that no bachelors of law should be allowed to come here [the New World]; for not only are they bad themselves, but they also make and contrive a thousand iniquities.
To Ferdinand V of Spain in 1513

Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
I resolved to abandon trade and to fix my aim on something more praiseworthy and stable; whence it was that I made preparation for going to see part of the world and its wonders.

Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci
Two days after moving we recommended ourselves to God, Our Lord, and fled, hoping that, although it was late in the season and the fruits of the tunas were giving out, by remaining in the field we might still get over a good portion of the land.

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
They have among themselves a scientific language, which is like the Latin among us, that no one understands unless he is instructed in it.