4 Quotes & Sayings By Matthew Flinders

Matthew Flinders was a British explorer and scientist. He was a pioneer of Australian exploration and was a navigator of the first voyage to circumnavigate Australia by water, from 1801 to 1803. Born in Sussex, England, he moved with his family to Australia at the age of ten. In 1798 he joined the Fleet under William Bligh on HMS Bounty, which sailed to Tahiti and then to New Zealand Read more

In 1801 he sailed for Australia in the Adventure, but in 1803 left her at Port Jackson with a crew of twelve men, including botanist Joseph Banks, and a number of Tahitian "farewellers", who had been promised land if they agreed to be transported to Sydney. He was one of the first Europeans to explore Western Australia when he sailed from Shark Bay in August 1804. In March 1805 he sailed from King George's Sound into Bass Strait in search of Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania).

In May 1806 Flinders sighted the west coast of Tasmania, naming it after George III (King George was created King of Hanover in 1714). With the help of aboriginal guides, Flinders sailed south-east across Bass Strait; his boat was wrecked near Macquarie Harbour on 29 May. He then continued northwards but did not find any passage through Bass Strait.

On 14 August 1806 his ship "Investigator" grounded on the Great Barrier Reef, which led several months later to his death when he drowned while leaving the vessel to swim ashore at Port Curtis (now known as Derby). His body was never recovered..

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Is it possible thatwe ‘hate’ politics because we have forgotten its specifi c and limitednature, its overwhelming value, and also its innate fragility? Could it bethat our expectations are so high that politics appears almost destinedto disappoint? Democratic politics cannot make ‘every sad heart glad’, as Crick argued, nor did it ever promise to do so. But not alwaysgetting what you want, an awareness that public governance is oftenslow and bureaucratic, a frustration that some decisions are hard tounderstand or have to be made in secret, disbelief and anger at the selfinterestedbehaviour of a small number of politicians, and an acceptancethat some people will always take out more from the system thanthey put in–these are the prices you pay for living in a democracy. Matthew Flinders
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Is it possible that we ‘hate’ politics because we have forgotten its specific and limited nature, its overwhelming value, and also its innate fragility? Could it be that our expectations are so high that politics appears almost destined to disappoint? Democratic politics cannot make ‘every sad heart glad’, as Crick argued, nor did it ever promise to do so. But not always getting what you want, an awareness that public governance is often slow and bureaucratic, a frustration that some decisions are hard to understand or have to be made in secret, disbelief and anger at the selfinterested behaviour of a small number of politicians, and an acceptance that some people will always take out more from the system than they put in–these are the prices you pay for living in a democracy. Matthew Flinders
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Political cynicism, disengagement, democratic decadence – call it what you will – is too often an excuse for physical and intellectual laziness. Matthew Flinders