Benedict Wong Quotes

It all goes back to 'Wow, I never knew this about Marco Polo.' This is an incredible story and an incredible character, and such a rich world of Mongolian and Chinese culture.

At a young age, when I was fascinated with China, I read 'The Travels of Marco Polo' and learned about this exciting, dramatic world he captured and reported on. He's so little known, but yet this mythology has survived that's so misrepresentative of his story.

It always circled back around to Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. That always fascinated me because so few people make the connection between the two.

Marco Polo has been kind of buried under this cloud of rather banal historical dust, when the true story is so much more exciting.

I grew up with a fascination with Marco Polo. I had this unlikely interest in the East as a young man, and you can't really read about Chinese history and philosophy without encountering him at every turn.

When people hear the name 'Marco Polo,' they tend to think of a map or explorer. Very few people know the true story of Marco Polo, and it's so much more compelling and exciting than the mythology.

It is always the adventurers who do great things, not the sovereigns of great empires.

Neil Armstrong was no Christopher Columbus. In most respects, he was better. Unlike the famous fifteenth century seafarer, Armstrong knew where he landed. He also spent his time in public service, not in jail, and his passing was marked by world-wide encomiums. He ended his days as a celebrated explorer rather than a royal inconvenience.

Khan let Polo be his eyes and ears. He was the first one to build a bridge between East and West.

So many voyages and discoveries without result, and attended with so much hardship and expense, have caused us French in late years to attempt a permanent settlement in those lands which we call New France, in the hope of thus realizing more easily this object

Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!... The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires.

I have always had eclectic obsessions: astrophysics, music theory, the Mongol empire and its history, and the history of the Silk Road, to name a few.

I got a real kick when a series was set in the court of Kublai Khan or in Nero's Rome.

Why would these English explorers search for these spices, yet never use them in their food?

When Columbus took off, the purpose was to improve trade relations with China. That problem has not been solved to this very day, but just look at the by-products.

The people that first climbed Mt. Everest weren't scientists, right, they were adventurers. If you're an adventurer, you want to go yourself. It's different than a scientist, who is simply wanting to learn.

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

History. The more of it you have the more you have to live it. After a little while there gets to be too much of it to memorize and maybe that's when empires start to decline.

The Lewis and Clark tale has all the all the elements that one would want to put into a movie. It has the, continual threat for life; it's got the thread of Indians; it's got disease. It has daily risk where these men may go under the water. It's got the fight with the elements. It's got the el the role of the unknown continually threatening them.

I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.

All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest.

Like all explorers, we are drawn to discover what's out there without knowing yet if we have the courage to face it.

Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne, Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise, Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

I would like my personal reading map to resemble a map of the British Empire circa 1900.

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold.