18th-century Explorer Quotes

James Cook

Daniel Boone

Matthew Flinders

William Clark

Meriwether Lewis

Zebulon Pike

Strict justice would demand total confiscation of your property, personal imprisonment and fines.

Situated, many hundred miles from our families in the howling wilderness, I believe few would have equally enjoyed the happiness we experienced. I often observed to my brother, You see now how little nature requires to be satisfied. Felicity, the companion of content, is rather found in our own breasts than in the enjoyment of external things; And I firmly believe it requires but a little philosophy to make a man happy in whatsoever state he is. This consists in a full resignation to the will of Providence; and a resigned soul finds pleasure in a path strewed with briars and thorns.

We were also fortunate enough to engage in our service a Canadian Frenchmen, who had been with the Chayenne Indians on the Black mountains, and last summer descended thence by the Little Missouri.

Meriwether Lewis

Remember, the greater the opportunity, the fewer are those who see it.

A heavy fog this morning prevented our setting out before seven o'clock. At nine I took two men and walked on the L.S. I crossed three beautiful streams of running water heading into the prairies. On those streams the land very fine, covered with pea vine and rich weed.

Had I permitted myself any innovation upon the original term, it would have been to convert it into Australia; as being more agreeable to the ear, and an assimilation to the names of the other great portions of the earth.

Matthew Flinders

Architecture is like music - one note out of its place is sufficient to destroy the harmony of the whole.

Giacomo Beltrami