Christopher Columbus — "I have seen serpents, but they are not as they are painted."

"I arrived at the Indies with the fleet which the Sovereigns, our Lord and Lady, sent me. I had not been there twenty days when I discovered by my own experience that the whole of that land is an islan…"

"I have seen and I have heard, but I do not believe."

"They are so ingenuous and free with all they have, that no one would believe it who has not seen it; of anything they have, if you ask them for it, they never say no; rather, they invite you to share …"

"I believe that this is the Earthly Paradise."

"I recognized that they were people who would be better freed [from error] and converted to our Holy Faith by love than by force."