“They laid bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword, could split a man in two or could cut off his head or spill out his entrails with a single stroke of the pike.”

— Bartolomé de las Casas

History of the Indies (1561)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Aug. 25, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "They laid bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword, could split a man in two or could cut off his head or spill out…" by Bartolomé de las Casas?

Bartolomé de las Casas 21

Spanish Dominican friar, historian, and social reformer 1474–1566

Related quotes

“A stroke of the sword that does not hit its target is the sword stroke of death; you reach over it to strike the winning blow.”

Yagyū Munenori (1571–1646) samurai and daimyo of the early Edo period

A Hereditary Book on the Art of War (1632)
Context: A stroke of the sword that does not hit its target is the sword stroke of death; you reach over it to strike the winning blow. Your adversary's initiative having missed its mark, you turn the tables around and get the jump on your adversary.

“Torn between the impulse to stroke his head, and the urge to cave it in with a rock, I did neither.”

Diana Gabaldon book Dragonfly in Amber

Source: Dragonfly in Amber

“The pencil-stroke is like cutting into the heart.”

Günter Brus (1938) Austrian artist

Source: Nervous Stillness on the Horizon (2006), P. 8 (Gunter Brus Werkumkreisung,op.cit, p. 128.)

“A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke [of the axe] he is writing his signature on the face of the land.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“November: Axe-in-Hand”, p. 68.
Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "November: Axe-in-Hand," "November: A Mighty Fortress," and "December: Pines above the Snow"
Context: I have read many definitions of what is a conservationist, and written not a few myself, but I suspect that the best one is written not with a pen, but with an axe. It is a matter of what a man thinks about while chopping, or while deciding what to chop. A conservationist is one who is humbly aware that with each stroke he is writing his signature on the face of his land.

“The strokes of the pen need deliberation as much as the sword needs swiftness.”

Julia Ward Howe (1819–1910) American abolitionist, social activist, and poet

As quoted in Stories Behind the Hymns That Inspire America: Songs That Unite Our Nation (2003) by Ace Collins, p. 36.

“The weight and concentration of the poems fall upon things (and those great things, animals and people), in their tough, laconic, un-get-pastable plainness: they have kept the stolid and dangerous inertia of the objects of the sagas—the sword that snaps, the man looking at his lopped-off leg and saying, “That was a good stroke.””

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Freud to Paul: The Stages of Auden’s Ideology”, p. 155
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

“He [Kippis] might be a very clever man by nature for aught I know, but he laid so many books upon his head that his brains could not move.”

Robert Hall (1764–1831) British Baptist pastor

On Kippis; Gregory’s Life of Hall, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“One stroke of his almighty rod
Shall send young sinners quick to hell.”

Isaac Watts (1674–1748) English hymnwriter, theologian and logician

Song 13: "The Danger of Delay".
1710s, Divine Songs Attempted in the Easy Language of Children (1715)

“He had a massive stroke. He died with his tie on. Do you think that could be our generation's equivalent of that old saying about dying with your boots on?”

Stephen King book The Stand

Rita Blakemoor
The Stand (1978)

“Ardiles strokes the ball like it was a part of his anatomy.”

Jimmy Magee (1935–2017) Gaelic games commentatot

During the FIFA World Cup. herald.ie http://www.herald.ie/news/irelands-other-big-games-winner-jimmy-magee-3196108.html
FIFA World Cup

“They laid bets as to who, with one stroke of the sword, could split a man in two or could cut off his head or spill out his entrails with a single stroke of the pike.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Bartolomé de las Casas 21

Related quotes

Related topics