Christopher Columbus Land Quotations

Tomorrow morning before we depart, I intend to land and see what can be found in the neighborhood.

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. Variants include "You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore".

Continued their course west till the afternoon, then southwest and discovered that what they had taken for land was nothing but clouds.

I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone.

I have always read that the world, both land and water, was spherical, as the authority and researches of Ptolemy and all the others who have written on this subject demonstrate and prove, as do the eclipses of the moon and other experiments that are made from east to west, and the elevation of the North Star from north to south.

The crew of the caravel "Nina" also saw signs of land, and a small branch covered with berries. Everyone breathed afresh and rejoiced at these signs.