Nick Thomas

“I and my companions suffer from a disease of the heart which can be cured only with gold.”
― Hernán Cortés

“I’ve known this a long time, because when Napoleon III created the bagnes and was asked: “But who will guard these bandits?” he answered: “Worse bandits.”
― Henri Charrière, Papillon

“The Mongol army had accomplished in a mere two years what the European Crusaders from the West and the Seljuk Turks from the East had failed to do in two centuries of sustained effort. They had conquered the heart of the Arab world. No other non-Muslim troops would conquer Baghdad or Iraq again until the arrival of the American and British forces in 2003.”
― Jack Weatherford, Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

“The ordinary traveler, who never goes off the beaten route and who on this beaten route is carried by others, without himself doing anything or risking anything, does not need to show much more initiative and intelligence than an express package," Roosevelt sneered.”
― Candice Millard, The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey