Hernando Cortes quotes:

For I assure Your Majesty that if God had not mysteriously assisted us and the victory had gone to Narváez, it would have been the greatest harm that Spaniards had done to each other for a long time past.

The meals were served in a large hall, in which Moctezuma was accustomed to eat, and the dishes quite filled the room, which was covered with mats and kept very clean.

So loud was the wailing of the women and children that there was not one man among us whose heart did not bleed at the sound...

We Spaniards know a sickness of the heart that only gold can cure.

There are fully forty towers, which are lofty and well built, the largest of which has fifty steps leading to its main body, and is higher than the tower of the principal tower of the church at Seville.

Among these temples there is one which far surpasses all the rest, whose grandeur of architectural details no human tongue is able to describe; for within its precincts, surrounded by a lofty wall, there is room enough for a town of five hundred families.

Furthermore, they had calculated that if 25,000 of them died for every one of us, they would finish with us first, for they were many and we were but few.

He travels safest in the dark night who travels lightest.

It was so wonderful that I do not know how to describe this first glimpse of things never heard of, seen or dreamed of before...

They no longer had nor could find any arrows, javelins or stones with which to attack us...

An abundant supply of excellent water, forming a volume equal in bulk to the human body, is conveyed by one of these pipes, and distributed about the city, where it is used by the inhabitants for drink and other purposes.

The divine drink which builds up resistance and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink permits a man to walk for a whole day without food.

The priests are debarred from female society, nor is any woman permitted to enter the religious houses.

Thus they have an idol that they petition for victory in war; another for success in their labors; and so for everything in which they seek or desire prosperity, they have their idols, which they honor and serve.

What men in all the world have shown such daring?

I and my companions suffer from a disease of the heart which can be cured only with gold.