Marco Polo Quotes

I believe it was God's will that we should come back, so that men might know the things that are in the world, since, as we have said in the first chapter of this book, no other man, Christian or Saracen, Mongol or pagan, has explored so much of the world as Messer Marco, son of Messer Niccolo Polo, great and noble citizen of the city of Venice.

My heart beats as much as I can breathe.

If you put together all the Christians in the world, with their Emperors and their Kings, the whole of these Christians, - aye, and throw in the Saracens to boot, - would not have such power, or be able to do so much as this Kublai, who is Lord of all the Tartars in the world.

I have not told the half of what I saw.

You will hear it for yourself, and it will surely fill you with wonder.

Here people was once used to be honourable: now they are all bad; they have kept one goodness: that they are greatest boozers.

We go naked because we want nothing of this world; for we came into the world naked and unclothed. As for not being ashamed to show our members, the fact is that we do no sin with them and therefore have no more shame in them than you have when you show your hand or face or the other parts of your body that do not lead you into carnal sin; whereas you use your members to commit sin and lechery, and so you cover them up and are ashamed of them. But we are no more ashamed of showing them than we are of showing our fingers, because we do not sin with them.

The militant Muslim is the person who beheads the infidel, while the moderate Muslim holds the feet of the victim.

The true sweetness of wine is one flavor

Without stones there is no arch.

The personal appearance of the Great Kaan, Lord of Lords, whose name is Cublay, is such as I shall now tell you.

I have not told half of what I saw.

I did not tell half of what I saw, for I knew I would not be believed