HUM 3 Final

I am, I exist - that is certain. But for how long? For as long as I am thinking… Strictly speaking then, I am simply a thing that things - a mind, or intelligence, or intellect, or reason, these being words whose meaning I have only just come to know. Still, I am a real, existing thing. What kind of thing? I have answered that: a thinking thing

Meditations on First Philosophy- Rene Descartes

They do not hold any creed nor are they idolators; only they all believe that power and good are in the heavens and are very firmly convinced that I, with these ships and men, came from the heavens, and in this belief, they everywhere received after they had mastered their feat

The First Letter- Christopher Columbus

It was upon these gentle lambs, imbued by the Creator with all the qualities we have mentioned that from the very first day they clapped eyes on them and the Spanish fell like revenging wolves upon the fold, or like tigers and savage lions who have not eaten meat for days. The Pattern established at the outset has remained unchanged to this day

A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies - Bartolomé de las Casas

The figures of the idols in which these people believe surpass in stature a person of more than the ordinary size; some of them are composed of a mass of seeds and leguminous plants, such as are used for food, ground and mixed together, and kneaded with the blood of human hearts taken from the breasts of living persons

Letters to Charles V- Hernan Cortes

The captain said to them: ‘I have heard that the Mexicans are very great warriors, very brave and terrible. If a Mexican is fighting alone, he knows how to retreat, turn back, rush forward, and conquer, even if his opponents are ten or even twenty.

Mexica Accounts of the Spaniard Conquest- Multiple Authors

It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved

The Prince- Machiavelli

Because this faith alone justifies, it is clear that the inner person cannot be justified, freed, or saved by any external work or activity at all and that no works whatsoever have anything to do with the inner person.

The Freedom of a Christian- Martin Luther

Occident: For among all the most high gods solemnly adored in my rites, so many deities that in this famed, illustrious city they number more than two thousand, to him we offer in savage unrelenting sacrifice hot human blood spilled, entrails throbbing heart pulsating still, oh most cruel; and though they number so many (I say this again) my greatest devotion is fixed upon him, the highest of all the high gods, exalted, the great God of Seeds)

Loa to the Divine Narcissus- Sor Juana

I proceeded in this way, as I’ve said, always directing the path of my studies toward the summit of holy theology. In order to reach it, it seemed to me necessary to ascend the ladder of the sciences and the humanities, for how can one who does not first know the ancillary fields possibly understand the queen of the sciences.

Response of the Poet- Sor Juana

But my greatest trump, my lord/ was to steal Helen herself,/ whose beauty so moved my…/ These are the marvels and wonders/ that Fame sings of me, my lord

Love is the Greater Labyrinth- Sor Juana

This rule is easily observed by removing some of the children of a more fruitful couple and giving them to another family that does not have so many.

Utopia- Thomas More

We must imagine it in everything, at all times. At the stumble of a horse, the fall of a roof tile, the mere prick of a pin, say it again, at once: ‘What if this, here, were death?’ And, with this, let us harden ourselves and practice.

To Philosophize is to Learn to Die- Michel De Montaigne

...every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.

On Cannibals- Michel de Montaigne

... I hold the sun to be situated motionless in the center of the revolution of the celestial orbs…

Letter to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany- Galileo Galilei

This island’s mine by Sycorax, my mother,/ which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first,/ Though strok’st me and made much of me, wouldst give me/ water with berries in’t, and teach me how/ to name the bigger light and how the less,/ that burn by day and night. And then I loved thee,/ and showed thee all the qualities o’th’isle,/ the fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile.

The Tempest- William ShakespeareThis passage reflects Caliban's feelings of betrayal and loss as he confronts Prospero's usurpation of his home.

... his weasand with thy knife. Remember/ first to possess his books, for without them/ He’s but a sot, as I am, nor hath not/ one spirit to command. They all do hate him/ As rootedly as I. Burn but his books

The Tempest- William Shakespeare

His fantasy filled with everything he had read in his books, enchantments as well as combats, battles, challenges, wounds, courtings, loves, torments, and other impossible foolishness, and he became so convinced in his imagination of the truth of all the countless grandiloquent and false inventions he read that for him not history in the world was truer

Don Quixote- Miguel de Cervantesand he set out on adventures to revive chivalry.

That is true,’ replied Sanson, ‘but it is one thing to write as a poet and another to write as a historian: the poet can recount or sing about things not as they were, but as they should have been, and the historian must write about them not as they should have been, but as they were, without adding or subtracting anything from the truth.

Don Quixote- Miguel de Cervantes, highlighting the distinction between poetic and historical writing.

Good news! Senores! I am no longer Don Quixote of La Mancha but Alonso Quixano, once called the Good because of my virtuous life. Now I am the enemy of Amadis of Gaul and all the infinite horde of his lineage; now all the profane histories of knight errantry are hateful to me; now I recognize my foolishness and the danger I was in because I read them; now, by God’s mercy, I have learned from my experience, and I despise them.

Don Quixote- Miguel de Cervantes, where the protagonist renounces his former identity as a delusional knight-errant, acknowledging the folly of his past obsessions with chivalric romances.

He heard her telling me that I should go to Potosi and earn money so we could get married

The Lieutenant Nun- Erauso

Now that I have convinced myself that there is nothing in the world-no sky, no earth, no minds, no bodies - does it follow that I don’t exist either? No it does not follow; for if I convinced myself of something then I certainly existed. But there is a supremely powerful and cunning deceiver who deliberately deceives me all the time! Even then, if he is deceiving me I undoubtedly exist…

Meditations on the First Philosophy- René Descartes, where he explores the nature of existence and skepticism, famously concluding "Cogito, ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am) as a foundational element of his philosophy.

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n… here at least we shall be free; th’ almighty hath not built here for his envy, will not drive us hence: here we may reign secure, and in my choice to reign is worth ambition through in Hell: better to reign in hell, then serve in heav’n

Paradise Lost- John Milton, where the character Satan asserts that the mind has the power to shape its own reality, emphasizing themes of free will and rebellion against divine authority.

Sufficient to have stood, thoroughly free to fall…Not free, what proof could they have given sincere, of true allegiance, constant faith or love, where onely what they needed must do, appeared.

This quote from Paradise Lost by John Milton reflects the idea that true free will is essential for genuine loyalty and love, suggesting that without the ability to choose, allegiance lacks sincerity.