West Indies Quotes

• Yeah, I know he discovered the West Indies; it wasn't America. But the whole thing with Columbus was that people had been telling him, 'Don't go. The world's flat.' But he kept going. He found land.

  Bill Cowher

  Land, America, People

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• England and France were rivals, not only on the continent, but in the West Indies, in India, and in Europe.

  Albert Bushnell Hart

  Europe, India, Rivals

  Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D. (1909). “Epochs of American History”

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• One of the bibles of my youth was 'Birds of the West Indies,' by James Bond, a well-known ornithologist, and when I was casting about for a name for my protagonist I thought, 'My God, that's the dullest name I've ever heard,' so I appropriated it. Now the dullest name in the world has become an exciting one.

  Ian Fleming

  Names, Bird, World

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• Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for, with God's grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America and
  the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life.

  Marcus Garvey

  Fighting, America, Grace

  Marcus Garvey, Amy Jacques Garvey (1923). “The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Or, Africa for the Africans”, p.239, The Majority Press

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• Practically all we know is that thousands of native Haitians have been killed by American Marines, and that many of our own gallant men have sacrificed their lives at the behest of an Executive department in order to establish laws drafted by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. ... I will not empower an Assistant Secretary of the Navy to draft a constitution for helpless neighbors in the West Indies and jam it down their throats at the point of bayonets borne by U.S. Marines.

  Warren G. Harding

  Marine, Men, Order

  "Democracy at the Point of Bayonets". Book by Mark Penceny, 1999.

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• Every sea-captain who sailed to the West Indies was expected to bring home a turtle on the return voyage for a feast to his expectant friends.

  Alice Morse Earle

  Home, Turtles, Sea

  Alice Morse Earle (2016). “Stage-coach and Tavern Days”, p.67, Library of Alexandria

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• My mother's family came from the British West Indies. And my father's family came from, well, my father's father came from the Montana/South Dakota area. They were Blackfoot Indian.

  Richie Havens

  Mother, Father, Montana

  "Richie Havens: Face to Face with His Face". Interview With Robert Siegel, www.npr.org. September 26, 2006.

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• What signifies Philosophy that does not apply to some Use? May we not learn from hence, that black Clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot Sunny Climate or Season, as white ones; because in such Cloaths the Body is more heated by the Sun when we walk abroad, and are at the same time heated by the Exercise, which double Heat is apt to bring on putrid dangerous Fevers? The Soldiers and Seamen, who must march and labour in the Sun, should in the East or West Indies have an Uniform of white?

  Benjamin Franklin

  Philosophy, Exercise, White

  Benjamin Franklin (1806). “The Complete Works, in Philosophy, Politics, and Morals, of the Late Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Now First Collected and Arranged: with Memoirs of His Early Life, Written by Himself ; in Three Volumes”, p.109

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• To abolish a status, which in all ages God has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects; but it would be extreme cruelty to the African Savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life; especially now when their passage to the West-Indies and their treatment there is humanely regulated.

  James Boswell

  Country, Men, Class

  James Boswell (1874). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.239

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• It is my duty to prevent, through the independence of Cuba, the U.S.A. from spreading over the West Indies and falling with addedweight upon other lands of Our America. All I have done up to now and shall do hereafter is to that end.... I know the Monster, because I have lived in its lair--and my weapon is only the slingshot of David.

  Jose Marti

  Fall, Land, America

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• When I met my designs in the market of a remote village in the West Indies, or in the airport restaurant in Zurich, I felt like the mother of many well-behaved children.

  Eva Zeisel

  Mother, Children, Airports

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• I go to Saint Barth in the French West Indies for two weeks each year. That place is amazing. Amazing people, beautiful beaches, great wine, wonderful harbors... It's incredibly romantic.

  Brooke Burke

  Beautiful, Beach, Wine

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• Marcus Garvey was one of the first advocates of Black Power, and is still today the greatest spokesman ever to have been produced by the movement of Black Consciousness...He spoke to all Africans on the earth, whether they lived in Africa, South America, the West Indies or North America, and he made Blacks aware of their strength when united.

  Walter Rodney

  America, Black, Movement

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• I really cannot understand the point of what you're saying. Really,' said Clotilde, looking at her. 'What a very extraordinary person you are. What sort of a woman are you? Why are you talking like this? Who are you?' Miss Marple pulled down the mass of pink wool that encircled her head, a pink wool scarf of the same kind that she had once worn in the West Indies. 'One of my names,' she said, 'is Nemesis.' 'Nemesis? And what does that mean?' 'I think you know,' said Miss Marple. 'You are a very well educated woman. Nemesis is long delayed sometimes, but it comes in the end.

  Agatha Christie

  Mean, Thinking, Extraordinary Person

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• In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America. Now, some have argued Columbus actually discovered the West Indies, or that Norsemen had discovered America centuries earlier, or that you really can't get credit for discovering a land already populated by indigenous people with a developed civilization. Those people are communists. Columbus discovered America.

  Jon Stewart

  Ocean, Blue, Land

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• Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Discovery, Numbers

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Principles of Mathematics”, p.457, Routledge

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• I grew up in a school system . . . where nobody understood the meaning of learning disorder. In the West Indies, I was constantly being physically abused because the whipping of students was permitted.

  Harry Belafonte

  School, Students, Grew

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• I'm well-travelled so I can see places coming up. I went to St. Croix in the West Indies at Christmas and it had been hit by a really bad tornado. Values there have gone down but I guarantee they will be up again in eight years. So I'll get in now while it's cheap as chips.

  Melanie Brown

  Christmas, Eight, Years

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Clearly the West Indies are going to play their normal game, which is what they normally do

  Tony Greig

  Games, Play, Normal

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• HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Science, Sea, Atmosphere

  Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.147, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major's Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism.

  J. K. Rowling

  Fall, Rocks, Government

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• The British merchants represented that they received some profit indeed from Virginia and South Carolina, as well as the West Indies; but as for the rest of this continent, they were constant losers in trade.

  Ezra Stiles

  Virginia, South Carolina, Loser

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• Had the Holocaust happened in Tahiti or the Congo, as it has; had it happened in South America, as it has; had it happened in the West Indies, as it has - you must remember that within fifty years of Columbus's arrival, only the bones remained of the people called the Arawaks, with one or two of them in Spain as specimens. Had the Holocaust committed under the Nazis happened somewhere else, we wouldn't be talking about it the way we talk about it.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Talking, Years, Somewhere Else

  "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

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