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Why did Columbus say You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore?
Wiki User
∙ 11y ago
It's not by Columbus. It's a misquote of a line from Andre Gide's 1925 novel The Counterfeiters (Les faux-monnayeurs): "On ne découvre pas de terre nouvelle sans consentir à perdre de vue, d'abord et longtemps, tout rivage" ("One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore").
Metaphorically, undoubtedly the meaning intended is "you won't make any major breakthroughs unless you're prepared to let go of the safe and familiar".
But as a nautical metaphor, it stinks. Commodore Collins of the British Admiralty * said that whoever coined the idea that sailors pre-Columbus stayed within sight of the shore had clearly never been to sea. Sailors from even the most primitive of cultures know that "coast-hugging" is very dangerous, so it's a poor metaphor for safety.
* Cited in Clifford D. Conner's "A People's History of Science: Miners, Midwives, and Low Mechanicks"
Wiki User
∙ 11y ago
Wiki User
∙ 13y agoit means to me that can never get something unless you work fo it and try hard for getting
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