Explorer

Charles Darwin

Science

1758–1778

"My object in this chapter is solely to shew that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties."

🇺🇸Theodore Roosevelt

Politics

1858–1919

"We propose to make the process of constitutional amendment far easier, speedier, and simpler than at present."

Peter Kropotkin

Philosophy

anarchism

1842–1921

"The law has no claim to human respect. It has no civilizing mission; its only purpose is to protect exploitation."

John Muir

Philosophy

environmentalism

1838–1914

"I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer."

🇬🇧Arthur C. Clarke

Literature

1917–2008

"The person one loves never really exists, but is a projection focused through the lens of the mind onto whatever screen it fits with least distortion."

"On the 24th of the Tschet month, a big gathering of people is taken here to celebrate the birthday of Rama, so famous in entire India."

🇮🇹Christopher Columbus

Technology

1451–1506

"I have come to believe that this is a mighty continent which was hitherto unknown. I am greatly supported in this view by reason of this great river, and by this sea which is fresh."

🇳🇴Roald Amundsen

Literature

1872–1928

"DIO vol.10 2000 Amundsen's unparalleled record of polar firsts, including evidence that he was 1st to each geographical pole."

François Bernier

Medicine

1620–1688

"There was no middle state. A man must be of the highest rank or live miserably."

Harry Johnston

Art

1858–1927

"Iceland, though it lies so far to the north that it is partly within the Arctic Circle, is, like Norway, Scotland, and Ireland, affected by the Gulf Stream, so that considerable portions of it are quite habitable."

🇭🇺Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner

Art

1840–1899

"Many disasters can be traced to our linguistic shortcomings. Millions of money and multitudes of men have been sacrificed in order to save the prestige of a mistake in translation committed "by authority."

🇺🇸John Muir (indologist)

Philosophy

environmentalism

1838–1914

"“Only that man... who is deluded, who is desirous of acquiring profits, who has neither deliberated upon his own religion, nor looked at the defects in Christianity, would become a Christian."

Nicholas Roerich

Philosophy

1874–1947

"They will ask, "Can the time of Maitreya create a New Era?" Answer, "If the Crusades brought a new age, then truly the Era of Maitreya is a thousandfold more significant." In such consciousness should one proceed."

🇨🇳Xuanzang

Religion

Buddhism

"He went from east to west subduing all who were not obedient; the elephants were not unharnessed, nor the soldiers unhelmeted."

🇺🇸William Beebe

Science

1877–1962

"The isness of things is well worth studying; but it is their whyness that makes life worth living."

🇬🇧Lewis Pugh

Law

b. 1969

"I’m not a rule-breaker by nature. But there are times when you need to untangle yourself from red tape. Because the truth is, if you wait for permission, some things will simply never happen."

🇬🇧Wilfred Thesiger

Military

1910–2003

"I craved for the past, resented the present, and dreaded the future."

🇺🇸Sylvia Earle

Science

b. 1935

"No ocean, no life. No blue, no green. No ocean, no us."

🇬🇧Eric Shipton

1907–1977

"...and I longed to return to the peak to explore some of the many ridges and faces which as yet had never been attempted. I now realise how lucky I was to have had this extraordinary peak virtually to myself;..."

🇬🇧Richard Francis Burton

Military

1821–1890

"Sir Richard Francis Burton and General Charles "Chinese" Gordon"

🇺🇸Frederick Russell Burnham

Literature

1861–1947

"As far as we can look back into history, the downfall of any nation can be traced from the moment that nation became timid about spending its best blood."

🇬🇧Freya Stark

Art

1893–1993

"One can only really travel if one lets oneself go and takes what every place brings without trying to turn it into a healthy private pattern of one's own and I suppose that is the difference between travel and tourism."

🇬🇧David Livingstone

Medicine

1813–1873

"Stanley and Livingstone Original reports from The Times"

🇺🇸Henry Morton Stanley

Politics

1841–1904

"Religion acts as a moral gardener, to weed out, or suppress, evil tendencies, which, like weeds: grow."

🇺🇸Davy Crockett

Politics

1786–1836

"I gave my decisions on the principles of common justice and honesty between man and man, and relied on natural born sense, and not on law, learning to guide me; for I had never read a page in a law book in all my life."

🇩🇪Alexander von Humboldt

Philosophy

1767–1835

"Our imagination is struck only by what is great; but the lover of natural philosophy should reflect equally on little things."

🇺🇸Jon Krakauer

Literature

b. 1954

"Some people feel like they don't deserve love. They walk away quietly into empty spaces, trying to close the gaps of the past."

Helena Roerich

Philosophy

1879–1955

"Statues in honor of the Bodhisattva Maitreya were erected in India and Tibet at the very beginning of our Christian Era, and there is not a single Buddhist temple where there is not now an Image of this Bodhisattva."

🇬🇧Alfred Russel Wallace

Science

1823–1913

"Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species."

Duarte Barbosa

Literature

1480–1521

"that every man may come and go, and live according to his own creed without suffering any annoyance, and without enquiring whether he is a Christian, Jew, Moor or Heathen. Great equity and justice is observed by all."

🇦🇺Tim Flannery

Science

b. 1956

"Some time this century, the day will arrive when the human influence on the climate will overwhelm all natural factors."

Walter Raleigh

Politics

1552–1618

"The world itself is but a larger prison, out of which some are daily selected for execution."

🇳🇿Edmund Hillary

Business

1919–2008

"Better if he had said something natural like, "Jesus, here we are."