Margaret MacMillan Quotes

Since the discovery of Columbus, there has been no event of equal importance to the human race.

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.

And so by the fifteenth century, on October 8, the Europeans were looking for a new place to try to get to, and they came up with a new concept: the West.

Among the fables that inspired the British Admiralty's cartographic assignments to Captain James Cook in the 1770s and Captain George Vancouver in the 1790s was a 1640 account under the name of Bartholomew de Fonte that appeared in a journal with the delightful title 'The Monthly Miscellany, or Memoirs for the Curious.'

One might almost say that the history of geographical discovery, properly so called, begins with Captain Cook, the motive of whose voyages was purely scientific curiosity.

To bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the heathens. .... It was the Lord who put into my mind ... that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies

Christopher Columbus discovered America in a blue-and-white sailor shirt, and since then, men have been wearing blue and white shirts.

We shall be inclined to pronounce the voyage that led to the way to this New World as the most epoch-making event of all that have occurred since the birth of Christ.

Cod is more responsible for the discovery of the New World than almost anything else. Drove the Vikings across the North Atlantic, and John Cabot discovered America by looking for cod.

For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps.

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

Columbus did not seek a new route to the Indies in response to a majority directive.

When that book came out, it was like Columbus telling about America at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella.

America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it.

I loved Bernard Cornwell's books.

A water route to Chinese trade replacing the long, arduous Silk Road was a great dream of the Renaissance.

Neither realism nor romance furnishes a more striking and picturesque figure than that of Christopher Columbus. The mystery about his origin heightens the charm of his story.

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

Every ship that comes to America got its chart from Columbus.

Dover's cliffs call to mind the Roman invasion; the Battle of Britain; our proximity to, yet difference from, mainland Europe; and international trade and exploration, both fair and exploitative.

I loved Frances Hodgson Burnett, who wrote 'The Little Princess' and 'The Secret Garden.' And I loved the 'Little House on the Prairie' books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I'm such a history-nerd that, with time for research, I could probably enjoy writing in just about any time period.

Who cares about the men who steered your breakfast cereal through winter storms? How ironic that the more ships have grown in size and consequence, the less space they take up in our imagination.

The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery.

Like everybody at that age, I read an awful lot of pulp fiction. But at the same time, I also read quite a bit of history and read that as much for pleasure as part of a curriculum.