Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville Quotes

If you drop a perpendicular from the frontier of Tunis, through Lake Chad to the Congo, you could say that the greatest part of the territories bounded by this line and the sea … are French, or destined to be included in France’s sphere of influence. We have a vast domain which it is for us to colonize and make fruitful …

A French expedition under secret instructions, right from the other side of Africa, into a territory over which our claims have been known for so long … would be an unfriendly act, and would be so viewed by England.

An irresistible movement is bearing the great nations of Europe towards the conquest of fresh territories. It is like a huge steeplechase into the unknown … whole continents are being annexed …

We never make conquests or ask any other nation to let us establish ourselves in their country as the English, the French and the Dutch have done.

It ordered to us to plant the cross with the first village, to produce there the fruits of Christianity, and the ecu of France, to ensure it the authority of Its Majesty and the French domination; having made our first unloading at the village of Holy-Marie-of-Sault, we made assemble the close and distant nations, fourteen, to which we made interpret our commission by the sior Nicolas Perrot, making draw up a cross and a wood of cedar to which we raised the weapons of France, while saying, by three times and aloud, the name of Louis XIV: We take possession of all the country until the Sea-of-South

When America was first made known to Europe, the part assumed by France on the borders of that new world was peculiar, and is little recognized. While the Spaniard roamed sea and land, burning for achievement, red-hot with bigotry and avarice, and while England, with soberer steps and a less dazzling result, followed in the path of discovery and gold-hunting, it was from France that those barbarous shores first learned to serve the ends of peaceful commercial industry.

My desire was not to pass any island without taking possession, so that, one having been taken, the same may be said of all.

The history of exploration across nations and across time is not one where nations said, 'Let's explore because it's fun.' It was, 'Let's explore so that we can claim lands for our country, so that we can open up new trade routes; let's explore so we can become more powerful.'

If I read not amiss, this powerful race will move down upon Mexico, down upon Central and South America, out upon the islands of the sea, over upon Africa and beyond. And can any one doubt that the results of this competition of races will be the 'survival of the fittest?'

If gold was found anywhere on the globe, that region would shortly be governed by English speakers.

Much as I lament the fate of these misguided men, it was not to be expected that the Natives of the countries adjacent to the Colony would suffer themselves to be overrun by those invaders.

It was highly necessary…and a matter of course, that a good Dutch colony shall be planted and reared here.

A very goodly Bay … that may have the prerogative over the most pleasant places of Europe, Asia, Africa or America for large and pleasant navigable rivers. Heaven and Earth have never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation.

Estranged from the powerful protection of the United Kingdom, you must be re-annexed to the dominion of France from which the provinces of Canada were wrested by the arms of Great Britain, at a vast expense of blood and treasure, for no other motive than to relieve her ungrateful children from the oppression of a cruel neighbor.

From the Indian point of view, French and English both have the same title to land—conquest.

Our first sight in Egypt, be it by larceny or be it by preemption, will be the almost certain egg of a North African Empire that will grow and grow until … we finally join hands across the equator with Natal and Cape Town.

Let it be signified to me through any channel ... that the possession of Florida is desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accomplished. [It was.]

The British should leave Egypt and … as the price of that policy and the favor England would thereby win from France, you should be able, without spending a shilling or losing a man, to annex China to the Indian Empire.

Have we, the first holders of this prosperous region, no longer a share in your history? Glad were your fathers to sit down upon the threshold of the long house. Had our forefathers spurned you from it, when the French were thundering at the opposite side to get a passage through, and drive you into the sea, whatever has been the fate of other Indians, the Iroquois might still have been a nation, and I, instead of pleading here for the privilege of living within your borders, I – might have had a country.

If it were not my purpose to combine barbarian things with things Hellenic, to traverse and civilize every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the bounds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean, and to disseminate and shower the blessings of the Hellenic justice and peace over every nation, I should not be content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power

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

It is certain that if his Majesty seizes this unique opportunity, which perhaps the ages will never again present, we can deal England a blow that would abate her pride and place her power within just bounds ... and he would have the glory, so dear to his heart, of being the benefactor not only of his own people but of all nations.

The king had a right to all uninhabited countries that should be discovered and possessed by any of his subjects and that the charters he freely granted to American companies had explicitly denied any latent claims of a British Parliament.

England was the first true colonial power to use its dominion over a large part of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, North America, and many Caribbean islands, in the first half of the 20th century.

Why should the brave Spanish soldiers brag? The sunne never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shineth on one part or other we have conquered for our king.