Explore Quotes by James Cook

Ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go.

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

What is still more to our shame as civilized Christians, we debauch their morals already too prone to vice, and we introduce among them wants and perhaps disease which they never before knew and which serve only to disturb that happy tranquility which they and their forefathers enjoyed. If anyone denies the truth of this assertion, let him tell me what the natives of the whole extent of America have gained by the commerce they have had with Europeans.

To enslave a people, give them money they didn't earn.

Gifted women musicians and composers rarely received their due.

From what I have said of the natives of New Holland they may appear to some to be the most wretched people upon earth but in reality they are far happier than we Europeans, being wholly unacquainted not only with the superfluous, but

I could not help concluding, that this man felt the most supreme pleasure, while he was driven on, so fast and so smoothly, by the sea.

Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.

The universality of tattooing is a curious subject for speculation.