“Does God think that, because it is raining, I am not going to destroy the world? - Lope de Aguirre after going mad in the Amazon”

“Many accidents happen to white people because they don't believe their dreams.”

“...much of the discovery of the world was based on failure rather than on success--on tactical errors and pipe dreams.”

“Years later, another member [of the Royal Geographical Society] conceded, "Explorers are not, perhaps, the most promising people with whom to build a society. Indeed, some might say that explorers become explorers precisely because they have a streak of unsociability and a need to remove themselves at regular intervals as far as possible from their fellow men.”

“They marched like madmen from place to place, until overcome by exhaustion and lack of strength they could no longer move from one side to the other, and they remained there, wherever this sad siren voice had summoned them, self-important, and dead.”

“Exploration...no longer seemed aimed at some outward discovery; rather, it was directed inward...”

“Starvation sounds almost unbelievable in forest country, and yet it is only too likely to happen. - Percy Harrison Fawcett”