Columbus Day

Columbus Day gathers quotes that trace the complicated wake of exploration: ambition and navigation, wonder at new horizons, and the costs paid by those already living there. Readers will find lines from speeches, essays, poems, and novels that question what we choose to celebrate—discovery, empire, migration, or mythmaking—and how national memory is built through names, maps, and anniversaries. Some quotations praise daring voyages and the human urge to cross boundaries; others confront conquest, enslavement, and cultural erasure, or honor Indigenous resilience and calls for truth-telling. Together, these words invite reflection on history as a contested story, and on commemoration as an act that can illuminate, distort, or repair.