Conquistador Quotes

A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.

First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores.

Furthermore, unlike many other great predators of history, from Genghis Khan to the Spanish conquistadors, King Leopold II never saw a drop of blood spilled in anger. He never set foot in the Congo. There is something very modern about that, too, as there is about the bomber pilot in the stratosphere, above the clouds, who never hears screams or sees shattered homes or torn flesh.

¿Puedes escucharlos? –reclamó. –¡Oh, eso no es justo para nada! –Todo es muy romántico, –dijo Gabriel y frunció el ceño. – O lo sería si mi hermano pudiera soltar una palabra sin sonar como una rana atragantándose. Me temo que no pasará a la historia como uno de los máximos conquistadores de las mujeres en el mundo.

You are a nice person, and you’re also full of anger. You’re a walking tangle of contradictions. That’s okay. Most of us are like that. Women, most of all. How could we not be? People want us to be sexy warriors who roll over and play dead on command. They want us to be flirty burlesque dancers in burkas, aggressive conquistadors with cookies in the oven, Dorothy Parker meets Dorothy Gale, Sandra Bernhard meets Sandra Dee, Kristen Stewart meets Martha Stewart.

I spit on the Christian God. When the White God arrived with the Spaniards, the Indians brought down fruit and corncakes and chocolate. The White Christian God proceeded to cut their hands off. He was not responsible for the Christian conquistadors? Yes, he was. Any God is responsible for his worshippers.

So El Dorado is no’ a man.” In a soft tone, Lucia said, “She’s La Dorada, the Gilded Woman. History had it wrong. Really wrong.” “Makes sense.” “What do you mean?” “Say you were a conquistador, hunting for the Gilded One’s gold, yet the native was clever enough to keep a tomb full of it hidden. A native—a woman native— somehow outwits you?” He shook his head. “Back in the day, I met a few gold-hungry conquistadors, and let’s put it this way—the fragility of conquistador ego canna be overstated.

As he stood, he slid his jeans off, rising above me like an Indian prince and Mexican conquistador all wrapped up into one...

Uno podría conquistar a un millón de hombres en batalla, pero debería conquistarse sólo a sí mismo. Ése en verdad es el conquistador supremo.

In the heyday of European imperialism, conquistadors and merchants bought entire islands and countries in exchange for coloured beads. In the twenty-first century our personal data is probably the most valuable resource most humans still have to offer, and we are giving it to the tech giants in exchange for email services and funny cat videos.

I am actually not at all a man of science, not an observer, not an experimenter, not a thinker. I am by temperament nothing but a conquistador — an adventurer, if you want it translated — with all the curiosity, daring, and tenacity characteristic of a man of this sort.

She seeds the Strand 9 Amazon Basin with defanged versions of European superbugs ten centuries before first contact, and when conquistadors arrive, they face locals by the millions, strong, thriving communities that won’t perish by mere contact with the world across the waves.

I know a conquistador when I see one. I know all about making a splash. It isn't hard. If you shout loud enough, for long enough, a crowd will gather to see what all the noise is about. It's the nature of crowds. They don't stay long, unless you give them reason.

...fortune always favors the bold.

Then the hard, dry Spaniards came exploring through, greedy and realistic, and their greed was for gold or God. They collected souls as they collected jewels. They gathered mountains and valleys, rivers and whole horizons, the way a man might now gain tittle to building lots.

Disappointment or disgust–Silas couldn't tell which–flickered in the girl's eyes. Remembering to give him a demure nod, she straightened her shawl and walked away. Silas watched her go. He couldn't swear on it, but he felt pretty sure the shawl-adjustment was more like the feminine version of a Mexican conquistador's cape-swish.

Wal-Mart’s relationship to place has become so abstracted that the company views even its own stores through the conquistador’s eyeglass. Like temporary forts built solely for purposes of territorial conquest, any one of them can be abandoned at any time.

in a new world behave in a new way as a new man. unhorse the conquistador.

Were Christian conquistadores more ethical than pagan Native American tribes? What monotheism undoubtedly did was to make many people far more intolerant than before,

Comprobaréis, señora, que los conquistadores carecen de vergüenza: llegan como mendigos, se comportan como ladrones y se creen señores.

Soy Daenerys de la Tormenta, de la sangre y la semilla de Aegon el conquistador.

Another of the great civilizations, the Aztecs, raised a breed of hairless chihuahuas especially for eating. When the Conquistadors arrived and found dog on the menu, they were of the same opinion as Mademoiselle, that this was evidence of the worst form of barbarism. They, the Spaniards, used dogs as befits civilized and Christian men - to hunt down fugitive Indians and tear them to pieces.

Eran conquistadores, y eso lo único que requiere es fuerza bruta, nada de lo que pueda uno vanagloriarse cuando se posee, ya que la fuerza no es sino una casualidad nacida de la debilidad de los otros.

Listen in close, Wall Street Conquistadors, you’re spreading like vapor up through people’s floors, you’re moving en masse under the cracks of our doors and grabbing our children to work in your stores, feeding the needy to make them your whores, but you need to remember the grave you’re digging is yours.

Valdivia's actions symbolize man's indefatigable thirst to take control of a place where he can exercise total authority. That phrase, attributed to Caesar, proclaiming he would rather be first-in-command in some humble Alpine village than second-in-command in Rome, is repeated less pompously, but no less effectively, in the epic campaign that is the conquest of Chile. If, in the moment the conquistador was facing death at the hands of tht invincible Araucanian Caupolican, he had not been overwhelmed with fury, like a hunted animal, I do not doubt that judging his life, Valdivia would have felt death was fully justified. He belonged to that special class of men the species produces every so often, in whom a craving for limitless power is so extreme that any suffering to achieve it seems natural, and he had become the omnipotent ruler of a warrior nation.

Oh, yes! They, like the lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten. It smell so like the waters of Lethe, and of that fountain of youth that the Conquistadores sought for in the Floridas, and find him all too late." Whilst

There is no law of complex systems that says that intelligent agents must turn into ruthless conquistadors. Indeed, we know of one highly advanced form of intelligence that evolved without this defect. They're called women.

I am not really a man of science, not an observer, not an experimenter, and not a thinker. I am by temperament nothing but a conquistador...with the curiosity, the boldness, and the tenacity that belong to that type of person.

Los blancos hicieron que estas tierras fueran extranjeras para el indio; hicieron que el indio comprara con su sangre el aire que respira.

¿Quién lee para llegar al final, por deseable que éste sea? ¿Acaso no hay ocupaciones que practicamos porque son buenas en sí mismas, y placeres que son absolutos? ¿Y no está éste entre ellos? A veces he soñado que cuando llegue el Día del Juicio y los grandes conquistadores y abogados y estadistas vayan a recibir sus recompensas - sus coronas, sus laureles, sus nombres grabados indeleblemente en mármol imperecedero-, el Todopoderosos se volverá hacia Pedro y le dirá, no sin cierta envidia cuando nos vea llegar con nuestros libros bajo el brazo: "Mira, ésos no necesitan recompensa. No tenemos nada que darles. Han amado la lectura.

In 1970, the prison system in this country was perhaps one-tenth the size of what it is today. Many people attribute this immense growth to the war on drugs. But even more than that, the expansion of the prison system reflects a war being waged against people of color, against Black-Brown-Indigenous bodies—the very same colonial war brought to us by Columbus and the conquistadores. These European “civilizers” treated Black and Brown people as if their lives were worth nothing. In many parts of the country, the designated value of our lives continues to be zero.

Don't go shaving, fellas.

. . . ‘You can try and maybe fail, or not try and always fail,

No entendían que uno tiene que ponerse del lado de los ganadores, o perder. Y es el hombre el que gana, siempre. El viejo conquistador.

Yucatán in Mexico means “What?” or “What are you saying?”—the reply given by the natives to the first Spanish conquistadors to fetch up on their shores. The

Es revelador que el primer nombre registrado en la historia pertenezca a un contable, y no a un profeta, un poeta o un gran conquistador.

Si el hombre que tiene lengua no es capaz de conquistar con ella a una mujer, no es hombre.

Quão monotonamente iguais têm sido todos os grandes tiranos e conquistadores; quão gloriosamente diferentes todos os santos.

Quão monotamente iguais têm sido todos os grandes tiranos e conquistadores; quão gloriosamente diferentes, todos os santos.

El Jardín del Edén, la tierra prometida, el paraíso. Mudo, mojado de lágrimas, el conquistador conquistado iba descubriendo el lugar donde acaba la tierra, Chile.

Comerciantes, conquistadores y profetas fueron los primeros que consiguieron trascender la división evolutiva binaria de «nosotros frente a ellos» y prever la unidad potencial de la humanidad.

El cabildo no tuvo la decencia de asignar una pensión a Marina Ortiz de Gaete, esposa legítima del conquistador de Chile, ingratitud tan frecuente por estos lados que incluso tiene nombre: «el pago de Chile».

In their quest for gold, and for the ruler who controlled its steady flow into the Aztec treasuries, the conquistadors had indeed marched far - some 275 miles over mountainous country to the great Valley of Mexico.

I found this quote more relevant today than it was yesterday: 'Man is born to live in the convulsions of anxiety or the lethargy of boredom. Hard work is the final solution - it prevents all of the above.' - Voltaire

We fought for centuries to wrest our land from Moors, only to free ourselves by turning into the slaves of war. Deprived by victory of combat, we sailed far horizons in search of carnage and found the Indies. Now we must save them from our past.

Il cielo sopra la sua vettura era disseminato di un'enorme quantità di stelle, sembrava addirittura una polvere d'oro - l'oro che i conquistadores inviavano ai loro sovrani via mare - rovesciata da sacchetti di cuoio su un nero velluto spagnolo.

la admiración por el Padre, símbolo de lo cerrado y agresivo, capaz de chingar y abrir, se transparenta en una expresión que empleamos cuando queremos imponer a otro nuestra superioridad: "Yo soy tu padre" […] No es el fundador de un pueblo; no es el patriarca que ejerce la patria protestad; no es rey, juez, jefe de clan. Es el poder, aislado en su misma potencia, sin relación ni compromiso con el mundo exterior. Es la incomunicación pura, la soledad que se devora a sí misma y devora lo que toca. No pertenece a nuestro mundo; no es de nuestra ciudad; no vive en nuestro barrio. Viene de lejos, está lejos siempre. Es el extraño. Es imposible no advertir la semejanza que guarda la figura del "macho" con la del conquistador español. Ése es el modelo –más mítico que real– que rige las representaciones que el pueblo mexicano se ha hecho de los poderosos: caciques, señores feudales, hacendados, políticos, generales, capitanes de industria. Todos ellos son "machos, "chingones".

conquista de Tenochtitlan, en manos de indígenas y castellanos. De esa conquista nació México. No fuimos conquistados, nacimos de la conquista de unos sobre otros, pero no somos ninguno de los dos, no somos el conquistador ni el conquistado, somos sus hijos.

...so the Americans just get a whole bunch of guns and shoot at England until it goes away and then they shoot at the conquistadors until they go away too. Then they shoot at the natives and then when they run out of natives they shoot at each other. Then they’ve still got a lot of bullets left over so they have to keep finding more people to shoot. Also, I think someone writes a constitution? Anyway, that’s where America comes from. So the moral of the story is that the primary ingredient for a successful nation is guns.

—¡Oídme! —aulló, y al momento se hizo el silencio—. ¡Todos me conocéis! ¡La mayoría habéis combatido conmigo! ¡Hemos matado juntos y más de uno a muerto a mi lado! ¡Sabéis quién soy! —desplegó las alas. La multitud le contemplaba y él se sentía inmenso—. ¡Rocavarancolia nos convoca a una nueva batalla! ¡De nuevo resuenan tambores de guerra! ¡Pero no os dejéis engañar! La Rocavarancolia que nos llama no es la nuestra! ¡Nuestro reino agoniza ahí fuera y nada de los que hagamos podrá salvarlo! —Denéstor se removió inquieto y la intranquilidad del demiurgo sirvió de acicate—. ¡Bien se han encargado de ello! ¡Nos lo han arrebatado todo! ¿Me oís? ¡Todo! ¡Y aún así estoy aquí para pediros que os dejéis engañar y que luchéis! ¡Porque fuimos grandes! ¡Somos monstruos y demonios! ¡Somos pesadillas y malos sueños! ¡Somos lo que el mundo teme! ¡Y si triunfa Hurza nos convertiremos en víctimas! ¡Y me niego a que ocurra eso! ¡No somos víctimas de nadie! ¡Jamás! ¡Somos verdugos y asesinos! ¡Quisieron exterminarnos antes y no pudieron! ¡Luchad, monstruos! ¿Me oís? ¡LUCHAD! ¡Luchad por nuestra Rocavarancolia si se os antoja! ¡O por el recuerdo de la antigua! ¡Luchad por Sardaurlar y los reyes conquistadores! ¡Por las torres dragoneras, por la sangre que derramamos! ¡ O por los malditos reyes araña si os apetece! ¡Luchad porque fuimos grandes y nadie que pretenda arrebatarnos eso va a conseguirlo! ¡Luchad por la gloria, por placer, por hacer daño! ¡No me importa el motivo! ¡No me importa qué fuerza os guíe! ¡Sólo quiero que luchéis! ¡Salid ahí fuera y arrasad con todos! ¡Y si se levantan, si osan levantarse, matadlos de nuevo!

Bez urážky lze importovat jenom myšlenky myšlenkami, ne myšlenky zbraněmi. Každý násilný conquistador pokládá obyvatele dobývaného území za méněcenné. Conquistou jim to dává najevo. Je-li tu však něco méněcenného, pak jsou to myšlenky, které se umějí prosadit jenom zbraněmi.

In short, conquest is in no sense a necessary sign of higher human development, though conquistadors have always thought otherwise. Any valid concept of organic development must use the primary terms of ecology-cooperation and symbiosis-as well as struggle and conflict, for even predators are part of a food chain, and do not 'conquer' their prey except to eat them. The idea of total conquest is an extrapolation from the existing power system: it indicates, not a desirable end, accomodation, but a pathological aberration, re-enforced by such rewards as this system bestows. As for the climactic notion that "the universe will be man's at last"-what is this but a paranoid fantasy, comparable to the claims of an asylum inmate who imagines that he is Emperor of the World? Such a claim is countless light-years away from reality.

them. We were the persons who made this good beginning, and it was not until two years later, when we had made the conquest, and introduced good morals and better manners among the inhabitants, that the pious Franciscan brothers arrived, and three or four years after the virtuous monks of the Dominican order, who further continued the good work, and spread Christianity through the country. The first part of the work, however, next to the Almighty, was done by us, the true Conquistadores, who subdued the country, and by the Brothers of Charity, who accompanied

Organizing the books was a fun afternoon. We decided to put the thick hardback books, mostly intro. to philosophy textbooks and Norton literature anthologies, on the top shelves where they looked good but stayed out of reach since there's no reason for opening them ever again. Then we went by genre: mysteries, cozies, modernists, mountains, sci-fi, beloved childhood volumes, books we bought abroad, books required in school we couldn't sell back, books bought for us we'll read soon, books bought for us we have no intention of reading, books we want to read but are too long for a commitment with our current schedules...We're not really done with this organization, and I doubt we ever will be, but that's one great part about it.

The grimmest examples of germs’ role in history come from the European conquest of the Americas that began with Columbus’s voyage of 1492. Numerous as were the Native American victims of the murderous Spanish conquistadores, they were far outnumbered by the victims of murderous Spanish microbes.

A house cat is not really a fur baby, but it is something rather more remarkable: a tiny conquistador with the whole planet at its feet. House cats would not exist without humans, but we didn’t really create them, nor do we control them now. Our relationship is less about ownership than aiding and abetting.

My murdered poets drew from deep wells, even if they were presently hidden from me. They spoke the same words as the monks, as the Conquistadores, as our Dictator General, but coaxed a language anew from the charred bones they’d been tossed. I had taken comfort that we had been lying for millennia, erasing whole races of writers, executing texts with aplomb. It wasn’t new. And someone had always been pressing hidden words from quill to parchment backed by stone. Whispering them into someone’s ear. Even if the parchment was burned and the hand chopped off and thrown into the same fire, the stone remained. Only there were the words legible.

Con la aparición de la escritura empezamos a oír la historia a través de los oídos de sus protagonistas. Cuando los vecinos de Kushim lo llamaban, podían haber gritado realmente «¡Kushim!». Es revelador que el primer nombre registrado en la historia pertenezca a un contable, y no a un profeta, un poeta o un gran conquistador.

Lethal to whom? Not to us English or Hollanders, who will come here peacefully and only as traders. Lethal to Yabu’s enemies and to Toranaga’s enemies, and to our Portuguese and Spanish enemies when they try to conquer Japan. Like they’ve done everywhere else. In every newly discovered territory. First the priests arrive. Then the conquistadores

The first secretary of defense, General Henry Knox, said that what we’re doing to the native population is worse than what the conquistadors did in Peru and Mexico. He said future historians will look at the “destruction” of these people—what would nowadays be called genocide—and paint the acts with “sable colors” [in other words, darkly]. This was known all the way through. Long after John Quincy Adams, the intellectual father of Manifest Destiny, left power, he became an opponent of both slavery and the policy toward the Indians. He said he’d been involved—along with the rest of them—in a crime of “extermination” of such enormity that surely God would punish them for these “heinous sins.

Atributos e defeitos podem conviver na mesma alma, as circunstâncias diferentes acordam ora uns ora outros.

Ni hubo ni habrá quien esté a su altura, que sepa, siquiera, cómo hacerles sombra.

The structure of the corporation is a telling case in point—and it is no coincidence that the first major joint-stock corporations in the world were the English and Dutch East India companies, ones that pursued that very same combination of exploration, conquest, and extraction as did the conquistadors. It is a structure designed to eliminate all moral imperatives but profit. The executives who make decisions can argue—and regularly do—that, if it were their own money, of course they would not fire lifelong employees a week before retirement, or dump carcinogenic waste next to schools. Yet they are morally bound to ignore such considerations, because they are mere employees whose only responsibility is to provide the maximum return on investment

Diógenes, el filósofo griego que fundó la escuela cínica, vivía en una tinaja. Cuando Alejandro Magno visitó en una ocasión a Diógenes, mientras este se hallaba descansando al sol, y le preguntó si había algo que pudiera hacer por él, el cínico contestó al poderosísimo conquistador: «Sí, hay algo que puedes hacer por mí. Por favor, muévete un poco a un lado. Me tapas la luz del sol».

Sé una cuerda para mi guitarra, agua. Los conquistadores han llegado y los antiguos conquistadores han pasado. Es difícil que recuerde mi cara en los espejos. Sé mi memoria y veré lo que he perdido. كُنْ لِجيتارَتي وَتَراً أَيُّها ٱلْماءُ؛ قَدْ وَصَلَ ٱلْفاتِحُون وَمَضى ٱلْفاتِحونَ ٱلْقُدَامَى. مِنَ ٱلصَّعْبِ أَنْ أَتَذَكَّرَ وَجْهِي ...في ٱلْمَرَايَا. فَكُنْ أَنْتَ ذَاكِرَتِي كَيْ أَرى ما فَقَدْت

[...] O êxito sempre foi o maior mentiroso - e a "obra" mesma é um êxito; o grande estadista, o conquistador, o descobridor está disfarçado em suas criações, até um ponto irreconhecível; a "obra", a do artista, do filósofo, só ela inventa quem a criou, quem a teria criado; os "grandes homens", tal como são venerados, são pequenas criações ruins, feitas posteriormente; no mundo dos valores históricos a moeda falsa domina.

The English-speaking world developed a historical narrative known as the “Black Legend,” which portrayed the Spanish as cruel and backward conquistadores who murdered and plundered their way through the Caribbean and Latin America. The British, in contrast (according to their own account), were hard-working, forward-looking colonists (rather than colonizers) who industriously set up self-sufficient farming villages on empty lands.

The Romanovs inhabit a world of family rivalry, imperial ambition, lurid glamour, sexual excess and depraved sadism; this is a world where obscure strangers suddenly claim to be dead monarchs reborn, brides are poisoned, fathers torture their sons to death, sons kill fathers, wives murder husbands, a holy man, poisoned and shot, arises, apparently, from the dead, barbers and peasants ascend to supremacy, giants and freaks are collected, dwarfs are tossed, beheaded heads kissed, tongues torn out, flesh knouted off bodies, rectums impaled, children slaughtered; here are fashion-mad nymphomaniacal empresses, lesbian ménage à trois, and an emperor who wrote the most erotic correspondence ever written by a head of state. Yet this is also the empire built by flinty conquistadors and brilliant statesmen that conquered Siberia and Ukraine, took Berlin and Paris, and produced Pushkin, Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky; a civilization of towering culture and exquisite beauty.

Sailing into the unknown was frightening and dangerous.  The little boy with the cheese stand grew up to do both great and terrible things, but regardless of the state of his soul, he changed the world forever.  He also unleashed the dogs of war.

Luz, Vida, Amor; Força, Fantasia, Fogo; esses Eu trago a ti: minhas mãos estão cheias desses. Há alegria no estabelecimento; há alegria na jornada; há alegria na meta. Somente se tu é triste, ou cansado, ou irado, ou desconfortável; então tu deve saber que tu perdeu a linha de ouro, a linha por onde Eu te guio para o coração dos arvoredos de Eleusis. Meus discípulos são orgulhosos e bonitos; eles são fortes e ágeis; eles governam seu caminho como fortes conquistadores. Amor é a lei, amor sob vontade.

From an ethical perspective, monotheism was arguably one of the worst ideas in human history. Monotheism did little to improve the moral standards of humans—do you really think Muslims are inherently more ethical than Hindus just because Muslims believe in a single god while Hindus believe in many gods? Were Christian conquistadores more ethical than pagan Native American tribes? What monotheism undoubtedly did was to make many people far more intolerant than before, thereby contributing to the spread of religious persecutions and holy wars. Polytheists found it perfectly acceptable that different people worshipped different gods and performed diverse rites and rituals. They rarely if ever fought, persecuted, or killed people just because of their religious beliefs. Monotheists, in contrast, believed that their God was the only god, and that He demanded universal obedience. Consequently, as Christianity and Islam spread around the world, so did the incidence of crusades, jihads, inquisitions, and religious discrimination.11

Growing numbers of us are acknowledging with grief that many forms of supremacy—Christian, white, male, heterosexual, and human—are deeply embedded not just in Christian history, but also in Christian theology. We are coming to see that in hallowed words like almighty, sovereignty, kingdom, dominion, supreme, elect, chosen, clean, remnant, sacrifice, lord, and even God, dangerous vices often lie hidden. . . . We are coming to see in the life and teaching of Christ, and especially in the cross and resurrection of Christ, a radical rejection of dominating supremacy in all its forms. The theological term for [this] is kenosis, which means self-emptying. . . . Rather than seizing, hoarding, and exercising power in the domineering ways of typical kings, conquistadors, and religious leaders, Jesus was consistently empowering others. He descended the ladders and pyramids of influence instead of climbing them upwards, released power instead of grasping at it, and served instead of dominating. He ultimately overturned all conventional understandings of . . . power by purging [it] of violence—to the point where he himself chose to be killed rather than kill.

Cortés era igualmente ignorante acerca de los aztecas, pero él y sus hombres disponían de algunas ventajas importantes sobre sus adversarios. Mientras que los aztecas no tenían experiencia que les preparara para la llegada de esos extranjeros de extraño aspecto y malolientes, los españoles sabían que la Tierra estaba llena de reinos humanos desconocidos, y nadie tenía más experiencia en invadir tierras ajenas y en tratar con situaciones que desconocían completamente. Para el conquistador europeo moderno, como para el científico europeo moderno, sumergirse en lo desconocido era estimulante.

Thus it can be said that, until the fifteenth century, Black Africa never lost its civilization. Frobenius reports: Not that the first European navigators at the end of the Middle Ages failed to make some very remarkable observations. When they reached the Bay of Guinea and alighted at Vaida, the captains were astonished to find well-planned streets bordered for several leagues by two rows of trees; for days they traversed a countryside covered by magnificent fields, inhabited by men in colorful attire that they had woven themselves! More to the south, in the Kingdom of the Congo, a teeming crowd clad in silk and velvet, large States, well ordered down to the smallest detail, powerful rulers, prosperous industries. Civilized to the marrow of their bones! Entirely similar was the condition of the lands on the east coast, Mozambique, for example. The revelations of the navigators from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries provide positive proof that Black Africa, which extended south of the desert zone of the Sahara, was still in full bloom, in all the splendor of harmonious, well-organized civilizations. This flowering the European conquistadors destroyed as they advanced.

So where could they be going? Do they even know themselves? They are seeking adventure. They are looking for hours of intense suffering and happiness. For battle and conquest. Far from the refuges and popular summits, they want to revive in themselves the doubts and excitements of the first mountain pioneers.

De todo modo, quero concluir este livro com a ideia que serviu de base para tudo o que você acabou de ler: que é admirável querer ser um homem ou uma mulher de negócios melhor, um atleta melhor, um conquistador melhor. Todos nós devemos querer ser mais informados, ter uma situação financeira melhor… Devemos querer, como eu disse algumas vezes ao longo do livro, fazer coisas grandiosas. Eu sei que eu quero. Mas eis um feito não menos admirável: ser uma pessoa melhor, ser uma pessoa mais feliz, ser uma pessoa equilibrada, ser uma pessoa satisfeita, ser uma pessoa humilde e altruísta. Ou, melhor ainda, ser tudo isso ao mesmo tempo.

The (unratified) Preamble of the European Constitution begins by stating that it draws inspiration “from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, from which have developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person, democracy, equality, freedom and the rule of law.”3 This may easily give one the impression that European civilization is defined by the values of human rights, democracy, equality, and freedom. Countless speeches and documents draw a direct line from ancient Athenian democracy to the present-day European Union, celebrating twenty-five hundred years of European freedom and democracy. This is reminiscent of the proverbial blind man who takes hold of an elephant’s tail and concludes that an elephant is a kind of brush. Yes, democratic ideas have been part of European culture for centuries, but they were never the whole. For all its glory and impact, Athenian democracy was a halfhearted experiment that survived for barely two hundred years in a small corner of the Balkans. If European civilization for the past twenty-five centuries has been defined by democracy and human rights, what are we to make of Sparta and Julius Caesar, of the Crusaders and the conquistadores, of the Inquisition and the slave trade, of Louis XIV and Napoleon, of Hitler and Stalin? Were they all intruders from some foreign civilization? In truth, European civilization is anything Europeans make of it, just as Christianity is anything Christians make of it, Islam is anything Muslims make of it, and Judaism is anything Jews make out of it. And they have made of it remarkably different things over the centuries. Human groups are defined more by the changes they undergo than by any continuity, but they nevertheless manage to create for themselves ancient identities thanks to their storytelling skills. No matter what revolutions they experience, they can usually weave old and new into a single yarn.

I liken modern scientists to conquistadors. They have no idea what they're dealing with, but they're going to conquer it, whatever it is --- all in the name of God. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to scientific discovery and exploration. I love this stuff. What I despise is reckless disregard for how little we know. We create trans fats with nary a question about whether they're good for us or not. We develop a food pyramid with carbohydrates on the bottom and thirty years later we realize it created an obesity and type 2 diabetes epidemic. It should give us all pause that we would be a much healthier nation if the government had never told us how to eat.

Some readers who have visited New Spain, and other interested persons who have not, may be aware that Mexico was a very large city, built in the water like Venice, and governed by a great prince called Montezuma, who was a king of many neighbouring lands and ruled over the whole of New Spain, which is a country twice the size of out own.

The coin suggests the cultural density of human history, and how little of that richness was recorded before much of it was wiped out, how judgments about who is the primitive and who the real barbarian forestalled further inquiry into the complexity of human cultural life. The coin reminds me that the urge to condemn the conquistadores and other miscreants in world history, the witless and avaricious mobs who followed the leads of the Genghis Khans, the Pizarros, and the Trujillos, might be countered today by refusing to define as evil any other culture, or even the wayward in our own. If we don’t, we risk ending up in a wasteland of uninformed dogmatists, the same shortsighted, narrow-minded belligerents who rise up in every era of human history.

Killenkusi was a Machi59 priestess. Her daughter Kinturay had to choose between succeeding her or becoming a spy; she chose the latter and her love for the Irishman; this opportunity afforded her the hope of having a child who, like Lautaro and mixed-race Alejo, would be raised among the Spaniards, and like them might one day lead the hosts of those who wished to push the conquistadors back beyond the Maule River, because Admapu law prohibited the Araucanians from fighting outside of Yekmonchi. Her hope was realized and in the spring60 of the year 1777, in the place called Palpal, an Araucanian woman endured the pain of childbirth in a standing position because tradition decreed that a strong child could not be born of a weak mother. The son arrived and became the Liberator of Chile.

Pesquisador e Experimentador Nenhum método científico é o único a poder dar acesso ao conhecimento! Devemos proceder com as coisas por tentativas, sejamos ora bons ora maus em relação a elas, agindo cada um por sua vez com justiça, paixão e frieza. Um se envolve com as coisas como policial, outro como confessor, um terceiro como viajante e como curioso. Poder-se-á chegar a arrancar uma parcela delas, seja pela simpatia, seja pela violência; um é impelido a ver claro pela veneração que lhe inspiram seus segredos, outro pelo contrário, pela indiscrição e pela malícia na interpretação dos mistérios. Nós, pesquisadores, como todos os conquistadores, todos os navegadores, todos os aventureiros, somos de uma moralidade audaciosa e devemos estar preparados para passar, no fim de tudo, por maus.

At the collective level, pride is expressed in the conviction of being superior to others as a nation or a race, of being the guardian of the true values of civilization, and of the need to impose this dominant “model” on “ignorant” peoples by any means available. This attitude often serves as a pretext for “developing” the resources of underdeveloped countries. The conquistadors and their bishops burned the vast Mayan and Aztec libraries of Mexico, of which barely a dozen volumes survive. Chinese textbooks and media continue to describe Tibetans as backward barbarians and the Dalai Lama as a monster. It was pride, above all, that allowed the Chinese to ignore the hundreds of thousands of volumes of philosophy housed in Tibetan monasteries before they demolished six thousand of those centers of learning.

If you want to drive the isthmus lengthwise, down the gullet, Mexico to Colombia, where the land broadens and South America begins, your best bet is the Pan-American Highway, which starts in Alaska and continues thirty thousand miles to the bottom of the world. It’s a network of roads each charted by a conquistador or strongman. It’s disappointing in many places, rutted and small, climbing and descending, battling the jungle and mountains, then ending abruptly in the rain forest of Panama. It’s as if the road itself, defeated by nature, walked away muttering. It starts again sixty-five miles hence, on the other side of a chasm. This is called the Darién Gap. It symbolizes the incomplete nature of Central America, the IN PROGRESS sign that seems to hang over everything. Russia is the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Germany is the Autobahn. The United States is Route 66. Central America is the Darién Gap.

From the dawn of Spain’s venture into the New World until the end of its colonial regime, Spanish America was gripped by an almost innate need to process, categorize, and label human differences in an effort to manage its vast empire.1 Whether it was conquistadors seeking to establish grades of difference between themselves and native rulers, or simple artisans striving to distinguish themselves from their peers, people paid careful attention to what others looked like, how they lived, what they wore, and how they behaved. Over time, rules were created to contain transgressions. The wearing of costumes and masks outside of sanctioned events and holidays was soundly discouraged, lest disguises lead to crimes, immorality, and mistaken identities.2 People who lived as others could be labeled criminals, and those who moved across color boundaries to enjoy privileges not associated with their caste did so at their own peril.3 When legislation failed to control behavior, social pressure impelled obedience and conformity.

ONE OF THE peculiarities of the white race’s presence in America is how little intention has been applied to it. As a people, wherever we have been, we have never really intended to be. The continent is said to have been discovered by an Italian who was on his way to India. The earliest explorers were looking for gold, which was, after an early streak of luck in Mexico, always somewhere farther on. Conquests and foundings were incidental to this search—which did not, and could not, end until the continent was finally laid open in an orgy of goldseeking in the middle of the 19th century. Once the unknown of geography was mapped, the industrial marketplace became the new frontier, and we continued, with largely the same motives and with increasing haste and anxiety, to displace ourselves—no longer with unity of direction, like a migrant flock, but like the refugees from a broken ant hill. In our own time we have invaded foreign lands and the moon with the high-toned patriotism of the conquistadors, and with the same mixture of fantasy and avarice.

The oldest of the three Abrahamic religions, and the clear ancestor of the other two, is Judaism: originally a tribal cult of a single fiercely unpleasant God, morbidly obsessed with sexual restrictions, with the smell of charred flesh, with his own superiority over rival gods and with the exclusiveness of his chosen desert tribe. During the Roman occupation of Palestine, Christianity was founded by Paul of Tarsus as a less ruthlessly monotheistic sect of Judaism and a less exclusive one, which looked outwards from the Jews to the rest of the world. Several centuries later, Muhammad and his followers reverted to the uncompromising monotheism of the Jewish original, but not its exclusiveness, and founded Islam upon a new holy book, the Koran or Qur’an, adding a powerful ideology of military conquest to spread the faith. Christianity, too, was spread by the sword, wielded first by Roman hands after the Emperor Constantine raised it from eccentric cult to official religion, then by the Crusaders, and later by the conquistadors and other European invaders and colonists, with missionary accompaniment.

The oldest of the three Abrahamic religions, and the clear ancestor of the other two, is Judaism: originally a tribal cult of a single fiercely unpleasant God, morbidly obsessed with sexual restrictions, with the smell of charred flesh, with his own superiority over rival gods and with the exclusiveness of his chosen desert tribe. During the Roman occupation of Palestine, Christianity was founded by Paul of Tarsus as a less ruthlessly monotheistic sect of Judaism and a less exclusive one, which looked outwards from the Jews to the rest of the world. Several centuries later, Muhammad and his followers reverted to the uncompromising monotheism of the Jewish original, but not its exclusiveness, and founded Islam upon a new holy book, the Koran or Qur’an, adding a powerful ideology of military conquest to spread the faith. Christianity, too, was spread by the sword, wielded first by Roman hands after the Emperor Constantine raised it from eccentric cult to official religion, then by the Crusaders, and later by the conquistadores and other European invaders and colonists, with missionary accompaniment.

You find nothing like that among humans. Yes, human groups may have distinct social systems, but these are not genetically determined, and they seldom endure for more than a few centuries. Think of twentieth-century Germans, for example. In less than a hundred years the Germans organised themselves into six very different systems: the Hohenzollern Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, the German Democratic Republic (aka communist East Germany), the Federal Republic of Germany (aka West Germany), and finally democratic reunited Germany. Of course the Germans kept their language and their love of beer and bratwurst. But is there some unique German essence that distinguishes them from all other nations, and that has remained unchanged from Wilhelm II to Angela Merkel? And if you do come up with something, was it also there 1,000 years ago, or 5,000 years ago? The (unratified) Preamble of the European Constitution begins by stating that it draws inspiration ‘from the cultural, religious and humanist inheritance of Europe, from which “have developed the universal values of the inviolable and inalienable rights of the human person, democracy, equality, freedom and the rule of law’.3 This may easily give one the impression that European civilisation is defined by the values of human rights, democracy, equality and freedom. Countless speeches and documents draw a direct line from ancient Athenian democracy to the present-day EU, celebrating 2,500 years of European freedom and democracy. This is reminiscent of the proverbial blind man who takes hold of an elephant’s tail and concludes that an elephant is a kind of brush. Yes, democratic ideas have been part of European culture for centuries, but they were never the whole. For all its glory and impact, Athenian democracy was a half-hearted experiment that survived for barely 200 years in a small corner of the Balkans. If European civilisation for the past twenty-five centuries has been defined by democracy and human rights, what are we to make of Sparta and Julius Caesar, of the Crusaders and the conquistadores, of the Inquisition and the slave trade, of Louis XIV and Napoleon, of Hitler and Stalin? Were they all intruders from some foreign civilisation?

Belirleyici olan tek başına eylem değildir, bunun tanımı ve etkisi daha önce gelir. Yapılan bir şeyi anlatan ve açıklayan kişi, çoğu zaman onu yapandan daha önemlidir ve tarihin önceden kestirilemez güçler dengesi içinde genellikle en küçük bir hareket bile en inanılmaz etkilere neden olabilir...Tarih ölümsüzlüğü genellikle yalın, ortalama bir insana dağıtırken en cesur ve bilge olanları, isimsiz karanlığa savurur... Elli yaşına geldiğinde bile üç kez ufacık bir gemiye atlayıp o zamanlar tehlike ve maceraya atılan yüzlerce “adsız tayfa”dan biri olarak daha keşfedilmemiş okyanusa yelken açacak cesarete sahip dürüst ve cesur bir adamın adıdır bu. Hatta belki de bu ortalama, sıradan adamın adı demokratik bir ülke için, bir kralın ya da conquistador’un namından daha doğru ve kesinlikle Amerika yerine Batı Hindistan, Yeni İngiltere, Yeni İspanya ya da Kutsal Haç Toprakları olarak adlandırılmasından daha uygundur. Bu ölümlü adı, ölümsüzlüğe taşıyan bir insan olmamıştır; haksız davranıyor göründüğü her yerde eninde sonunda haklı olanı savunan yazgı seçmiştir bu adı. Emir böylesi yüksek yerden geldiğinde boyun eğmekten fazlası gelmez elimizden.

A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools. Oh my god, said the sergeant.

The native allies arrived in time, and Cortés then organized his troops for battle. I divided them and assigned them to three captains, each of whom with his division was to be stationed in one of three cities around Tenochtitlán. I made Pedro de Alvarado captain of one division and assigned him thirty horsemen, eighteen crossbow-men and gunners, and one hundred and fifty foot soldiers, and more than twenty-five thousand warriors of our allies. They were to make their headquarters at Tacuba. I made Cristóbal de Olid captain of another division . . . the division to make their headquarters in Coyoacán. Gonzalo de Sandoval was captain of the third division . . . This division was to go to Ixtapalapa and destroy it, then to advance over a causeway, protected by the ships, to join the garrison at Coyoacán. After I entered the lake with the ships, Sandoval would fix his headquarters where it suited him best. For the thirteen ships I left three hundred men, almost all of them sailors and well drilled, so that each ship had twenty-five Spaniards, and each of the small vessels had a captain, a pilot, and six crossbowmen and gunners. On May 10, Alvarado and Olid left Texcoco with their commands. The siege of Tenochtitlán was about to begin. It was to become the longest siege and one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the New World. At its end, an entire civilization would be destroyed and the largest city ever found by the conquistadors laid waste.

The entire pre-Columbian literature of Mexico, a vast library of tens of thousands of codices, was carefully and systematically destroyed by the priests and friars who followed in the wake of the conquistadors. In November 1530, for example, Bishop Juan de Zumárraga, who had shortly before been apointed 'Protector of the Indians' by the Spanish crown, proceeded to 'protect' his flock by burning at the stake a Mexican aristocrat, the lord of the city of Texcoco, whom he accused of having worshipped the rain god. In the city's marketplace Zumárraga 'had a pyramid formed of the documents of Aztec history, knowledge and literature, their paintings, manuscripts, and hieroglyphic writings, all of which he committed to the flames while the natives cried and prayed.' More than 30 years later, the holocaust of documents was still under way. In July 1562, in the main square of Mani (just south of modern Merida in the Yucatan), Bishop Diego de Landa burned thousands of Maya codices, story paintings, and hieroglyphs inscribed on rolled-up deer skins. He boasted of destroying countless 'idols' and 'altars,' all of which he described as 'works of the devil, designed by the evil one to delude the Indians and to prevent them from accepting Christianity.' Noting that the Maya 'used certain characters or letters, which they wrote in their books about the antiquities and their sciences' he informs us: 'We found a great number of books in these letters, and since they contained nothing but superstitions and falsehoods of the devil we burned them all, which they took most grievously and which gave them great pain.

Recorría sin descanso la inmensidad del sur con su pequeño ejército, adentrándose en los bosques húmedos y sombríos, bajo la alta cúpula verde tejida por los árboles más nobles y coronada por la soberbia araucaria, que se perfilaba contra el cielo con su dura geometría. Las patas de los caballos pisaban un colchón fragante de humus, mientras los jinetes se abrían camino con las espadas en la espesura, a ratos impenetrable, de los helechos. Cruzaban arroyos de aguas frías, donde los pájaros solían quedar congelados en las orillas, las mismas aguas donde las madres mapuche sumergían a los recién nacidos. Los lagos eran prístinos espejos del azul intenso del cielo, tan quietos, podían contarse las piedrecillas en el fondo. Las arañas tejían sus encajes, perlados de rocío, entre las ramas de robles, arrayanes y avellanos. Las aves del bosque cantaban reunidas, diuca, chincol, jilguero, torcaza, tordo, zorzal, y hasta el pájaro carpintero, marcando el ritmo con su infatigable tac-tac-tac. Al paso de los caballeros se levantaban nubes de mariposas y los venados, curiosos, se acercaban a saludar. La luz se filtraba entre las hojas y dibujaba sombras en el paisaje; la niebla subía del suelo tibio y envolvía el mundo en un hálito de misterio. Lluvia y más lluvia, ríos, lagos, cascadas de aguas blancas y espumosas, un universo líquido. Y al fondo, siempre, las montañas nevadas, los volcanes humeantes, las nubes viajeras. En otoño el paisaje era de oro y sangre, enjoyado, magnífico. A Pedro de Valdivia se le escapaba el alma y se le quedaba enredada entre los esbeltos troncos vestidos de musgo, fino terciopelo. El Jardín del Edén, la tierra prometida, el paraíso. Mudo, mojado de lágrimas, el conquistador conquistado iba descubriendo el lugar donde acaba la tierra, Chile.

Os animais foram imperfeitos, compridos de rabo, tristes de cabeça. Pouco a pouco foram se compondo, fazendo-se paisagem, adquirindo manchas, graça, voo. O gato só gato apareceu completo e orgulhoso nasceu completamente terminado, caminha sozinho e sabe o que quer. O homem quer ser peixe e pássaro, a serpente queria ter asas, o cachorro é um leão desorientado, o engenheiro quer ser poeta, a mosca estuda para ser andorinha, o poeta tenta imitar a mosca, mas o gato só quer ser gato e todo gato é gato do bigode até o rabo, do pressentimento ao rato vivo, da noite até seus olhos de ouro. Não existe unidade como ele, nem têm a lua nem a flor tal contextura: é uma coisa só como o sol ou o topázio, e a elástica linhade seu contorno firme e sutil é como a linha da proa de uma nave. Seus olhos amarelos deixaram uma só ranhura para pôr as moedas da noite. Ó pequeno imperador sem orbe, conquistador sem pátria, mínimo tigre de salão, nupcial sultão do céu das telhas eróticas, o vento do amor na intempérie reclamas quando passas e pousas quatro pés delicados no solo, farejando, desconfiado de tudo que é terrestre, porque tudo é imundo para o imaculado pé do gato. Ó fera independente da casa, arrogante vestígio da noite, preguiçoso, ginástico, e alheio, profundíssimo gato, polícia secreta das moradas, talvez não sejas mistério, todo mundo sabe-te e pertences ao habitante menos misterioso, talvez todos o creiam, todos se creiam donos, proprietários, tios de gatos, companheiros, colegas, discípulos ou amigos de seu gato. Eu não. Eu não concordo. Eu não conheço o gato. Tudo sei, a vida e seu arquipélago, o mar e a cidade incalculável, a botânica, o gineceu com seus extravios, o mais e o menos da matemática, os funis vilcânicos do mundo, a casca irreal do crocodilo, a bondade ignorada do bombeiro, o atavismo azul do sacerdote, mas não posso decifrar um gato. Minha razão resvalou em sua indiferença, seus olhos têm números de ouro.

A força que os códigos possuem para impor a obediência, é, sobretudo, moral. Nenhuma potência material conseguiria tornar respeitada uma lei que toda a gente violasse. Se um gênio malfazejo quisesse destruir uma sociedade em poucos dias, bastar-lhe-ia sugerir a todos os seus membros a recusa de obedecer às leis. O desastre seria muito maior do que uma invasão a que se seguisse a conquista. Um conquistador limita-se geralmente, com efeito, a mudar o nome dos senhores que dispõem do poder, mas é seu interesse conservar cuidadosamente os quadros sociais cuja acção é sempre mais eficaz do que a dos exércitos Destruir a crença na necessidade do respeito aos freios sociais, representados pelas leis, é preparar uma revolução moral infinitamente mais perigosa do que uma revolução material. Os monumentos saqueados rapidamente se reconstroem, mas para refazer a alma de um povo, são necessários. em muitos casos, alguns séculos. Já tivemos de suportar, em várias épocas da nossa história, essas desagregações mentais, e no seu livro sobre Joana d’Arc Hanotaux indicou uma delas em termos preciosos: "Quando foi abolida toda a hierarquia, quando o próprio comando dissipou a sua autoridade, quando, pelos seus erros, ele deixou de ser respeitado, quando o organismo social está derrotado, fica livre o campo para as iniciativas individuais. Elas surgem e, segundo as leis naturais, procuram o crescimento e a florescência na deliqüescência das instituições destruídas" Combatendo a tradição em nome do progresso e sonhando destruir a sociedade para apoderar-se das suas riquezas, como Átila sonhava saquear Roma, os sectários não vêm que a sua vida é um estreito tecido de aquisições ancestrais, sem as quais não viveriam um só dia. Sabe-se como finalizam sempre semelhantes tentativas. Será, entretanto, preciso suportá-las, sem dúvida ainda pois só a experiência repetida instrui. As verdades formuladas nos livros são palavras vãs. Só penetram profundamente na, alma dos povos ao clarão dos incêndios e ao troar dos canhões.

Over the next 300 years, the Afro-Asian giant swallowed up all the other worlds. It consumed the Mesoamerican World in 1521, when the Spanish conquered the Aztec Empire. It took its first bite out of the Oceanic World at the same time, during Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe, and soon after that completed its conquest. The Andean World collapsed in 1532, when Spanish conquistadors crushed the Inca Empire. The first European landed on the Australian continent in 1606, and that pristine world came to an end when British colonisation began in earnest in 1788. Fifteen years later the Britons established their first settlement in Tasmania, thus bringing the last autonomous human world into the Afro-Asian sphere of influence. It took the Afro-Asian giant several centuries to digest all that it had swallowed, but the process was irreversible. Today almost all humans share the same geopolitical system (the entire planet is divided into internationally recognised states); the same economic system (capitalist market forces shape even the remotest corners of the globe); the same legal system (human rights and international law are valid everywhere, at least theoretically); and the same scientific system (experts in Iran, Israel, Australia and Argentina have exactly the same views about the structure of atoms or the treatment of tuberculosis). The single global culture is not homogeneous. Just as a single organic body contains many different kinds of organs and cells, so our single global culture contains many different types of lifestyles and people, from New York stockbrokers to Afghan shepherds. Yet they are all closely connected and they influence one another in myriad ways. They still argue and fight, but they argue using the same concepts and fight using the same weapons. A real ‘clash of civilisations’ is like the proverbial dialogue of the deaf. Nobody can grasp what the other is saying. Today when Iran and the United States rattle swords at one another, they both speak the language of nation states, capitalist economies, international rights and nuclear physics.

Se distinguían ya entre el polvo, pintados en el manto de los ponis, galones y manos y soles nacientes y pájaros y peces de todas clases como una obra vieja descubierta bajo el apresto de un lienzo y ahora se podía oír también sobre el retumbo de los cascos sin herrar el sonido de las quenas, esas flautas hechas con huesos humanos, y en la compañía algunos habían empezado a recular en sus monturas y otros a girar desorientados cuando del lado izquierdo de los ponis surgió una horda de lanceros y arqueros a caballo cuyos escudos adornados con añicos de espejos arrojaban a los ojos de sus enemigos un millar de pequeños soles enteros. Una legión de horribles, cientos de ellos, medio desnudos o ataviados con trajes áticos o bíblicos o de un vestuario de pesadilla, con pieles de animales y con sedas y trozos de uniforme que aún tenían rastros de la sangre de sus anteriores dueños, capas de dragones asesinados, casacas del cuerpo de caballería con galones y alamares, uno con sombrero de copa y uno con un paraguas y uno más con medias blancas y un velo de novia sucio de sangre y varios con tocados de plumas de grulla o cascos de cuero en verde que lucían cornamentas de toro o de búfalo y uno con una levita puesta del revés y aparte de eso desnudo y uno con armadura de conquistador español, muy mellados el peto y las hombreras por antiguos golpes de maza o sable hechos en otro país por hombres cuyos huesos eran ya puro polvo, y muchos con sus trenzas empalmadas con pelo de otras bestias y arrastrando por el suelo y las orejas y colas de sus caballos adornadas con pedazos de tela de vistosos colores y uno que montaba un caballo con la cabeza pintada totalmente de escarlata y todos los jinetes grotescos y chillones con la cara embadurnada como un grupo de payasos a caballo, cómicos y letales, aullando en una lengua bárbara y lanzándose sobre ellos como una horda venida de un infierno más terrible aún que la tierra de azufre de cristiana creencia, dando alaridos y envueltos en humo como esos seres vaporosos de las regiones incognoscibles donde el ojo se extravía y el labio vibra y babea. Oh Dios, dijo el sargento.

See how cruel the whites look. Their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and dis­torted by folds. Their eyes have a staring expression; they are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something; they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are mad." I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad. "They say that they think with their heads," he replied. "Why of course. What do you think with?" I asked him in surprise. "We think here," he said, indicating his heart. I fell into a long meditation. For the first time in my life, so it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture of the real white man. It was as though until now I had seen nothing but sentimental, prettified color prints. This Indian had struck our vulnerable spot, unveiled a truth to which we are blind. I felt rising within me like a shapeless mist something unknown and yet deeply familiar. And out of this mist, image upon image detached itself: first Roman legions smashing into the cities of Gaul, and the keenly incised features of Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, and Pompey. I saw the Roman eagle on the North Sea and on the banks of the White Nile. Then I saw St. Augus­tine transmitting the Christian creed to the Britons on the tips of Roman lances, and Charlemagne's most glorious forced con­versions of the heathen; then the pillaging and murdering bands of the Crusading armies. With a secret stab I realized the hol­lowness of that old romanticism about the Crusades. Then fol­lowed Columbus, Cortes, and the other conquistadors who with fire, sword, torture, and Christianity came down upon even these remote pueblos dreaming peacefully in the Sun, their Father. I saw, too, the peoples of the Pacific islands decimated by firewater, syphilis, and scarlet fever carried in the clothes the missionaries forced on them. It was enough. What we from our point of view call coloniza­tion, missions to the heathen, spread of civilization, etc., has another face - the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel in­tentness for distant quarry - a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen. All the eagles and other predatory creatures that adorn our coats of arms seem to me apt psychological representatives of our true nature.

El conflicto no tiene solución sino cuando Pío XI -este gran papa tan inflexible como conciliador según era menester- se avino a convenir con Mussolini, en 1929, los Acuerdos de Letrán, por los cuales, a cambio de la soberanía pontificia sobre un territorio minúsculo (44 hectáreas tiene en números redondos el Estado de la Ciudad del Vaticano) reconoce la Santa Sede la existencia del Reino de Italia con el territorio que le compete y con Roma como capital. (p. 15) Lo que no depende de la poca o mucha virtud del conquistador, sino de la naturaleza de lo conquistado. (p. 7) … Porque el vulgo se deja llevar siempre del éxito y de las apariencias, y en el mundo no hay sino vulgo (nel mondo non è se non vulgo). (p. 37) .. el dicho de Renan: Después de Atenas, ninguna ciudad ha contribuido tanto como Florencia en la promoción del espíritu humano. (p. 9) Con lo cual queda despachada la cuestión del fin y los medios, los cuales, si son malos, no pueden jamás ponerse por obra, así sea en la consecución del más santo de los fines. (p. 47) Nicolás Maquiavelo fue un escritor extraordinariamente fecundo, y en todos los muchos y variados géneros que cultivó -con la sola excepción de sus poesías, decididamente mediocres-, de suprema excelencia. (p. 11) Sin embargo, el que menos ha confiado en el azar es siempre el que más tiempo se ha conservado en su conquista. También facilita enormemente las cosas el que un príncipe, al no poseer otros Estados, se vea obligado a establecerse en el que ha adquirido. Pero quiero referirme a aquellos que no se convirtieron en príncipes por el azar, sino por sus virtudes. Y digo entonces que, entre ellos, los más ilustres han sido Moisés, Ciro, Rómulo, Teseo y otros no menos grandes. Y aunque Moisés sólo fue un simple agente de la voluntad de Dios, merece, sin embargo, nuestra admiración, siquiera sea por la gracia que lo hacía digno de hablar con Dios. Pero también son admirables Ciro, y todos los demás que han adquirido o fundado reinos; y si juzgamos sus hechos y su gobierno, hallaremos que no deslucen ante los de Moisés, que tuvo tan gran preceptor. Y si nos detenemos a estudiar su vida y sus obras, descubriremos que no deben a la fortuna sino el haberles proporcionado la ocasión propicia, que fue el material al que ellos dieron la forma conveniente. Verdad es que, sin esa ocasión, sus méritos de nada hubieran valido; pero también es cierto que, sin sus méritos, era inútil que la ocasión se presentará. (pp. 9-10) Pero volvamos a nuestro asunto. Cualquiera que meditase este discurso hallaría que la causa de la ruina de los emperadores citados ha sido el odio o el desprecio, y descubriría a qué se debe que, mientras parte de ellos procedieron de un modo y parte de otro, en ambos hubo dichosos y desgraciados. (p. 36) porque el que vence no quiere amigos sospechosos y que no lo ayuden en la adversidad, y el que pierde no puede ofrecer ayuda a quien no quiso empuñar las armas y arriesgarse en su favor. (p. 40)