Quotes from book
A Voyage Round the World

Name: A Voyage Round the World
Author: Georg Forster

“A man wholly destitute of philanthropy is a monster, justly detested by all mankind; but another, entirely incapable of anger, is a sheepish wretch, liable to be insulted by every mean-spirited villain.”

Georg Forster book A Voyage Round the World

Book III, ch. II, Account of our stay at Tanna, and departure from the New Hebrides.
A Voyage Round the World (1777)

“It is unhappy enough that the unavoidable consequence of all our voyages of discovery, has always been the loss of a number of innocent lives; but this heavy injury done to the little uncivilized communities which Europeans have visited, is trifling when compared to the irretrievable harm entailed upon them by corrupting their morals.”

Georg Forster book A Voyage Round the World

Book I, ch. VI, Stay at the New Year's Islands. Discovery of lands to the southward. Return to the Cape of Good Hope.
A Voyage Round the World (1777)

“It is the natural fault of young people to think too well of mankind [...].”

Georg Forster book A Voyage Round the World

Book I, ch. II, The Passage from Madeira to the Cape Verd Islands, and from thence to the Cape of Good Hope.
A Voyage Round the World (1777)

“Each vulgar opinion, proved to be erroneous, is an approximation to truth.”

Georg Forster book A Voyage Round the World

Book I, ch. II, The Passage from Madeira to the Cape Verd Islands, and from thence to the Cape of Good Hope.
A Voyage Round the World (1777)

“When we saw the most beautiful fishes of the sea, the dolphin and bonito, in pursuit of the flying fish, and when these forsook their native element to seek for shelter in air, the application to human nature was obvious. What empire is not like a tumultuous ocean, where the great in all the magnificence and pomp of power, continually persecute and contrive the destruction of the defenceless?”

Georg Forster book A Voyage Round the World

Sometimes we saw this picture continued still farther, when the poor fugitives met with another set of enemies in the air, and became the prey of birds, by endeavouring to escape the jaws of fishes.
Book I, ch. II, The Passage from Madeira to the Cape Verd Islands, and from thence to the Cape of Good Hope.
A Voyage Round the World (1777)

“It is very natural to overlook that which is near home, and as it were within our reach, especially when the mind looks forward, on discoveries which it reckons more important, in proportion as they are more remote.”

Georg Forster book A Voyage Round the World

Book I, ch. I, Departure - Passage from Plymouth to Madeira - Description of that Island.
A Voyage Round the World (1777)