Quotes about the sea

„It is time, love, to break off that sombre rose,
shut up the stars and bury the ash in the earth;
and, in the rising of the light, wake with those who awoke
or go on in the dream, reaching the other shore of the sea which has no other shore.“

—  Pablo Neruda Chilean poet 1904 - 1973

Es la hora, amor mío, de apartar esta rosa sombría,
cerrar las estrellas, enterrar la ceniza en la tierra:
y, en la insurrección de la luz, despertar con los que despertaron
o seguir en el sueño alcanzando la otra orilla del mar que no tiene otra orilla.
La Barcarola Termina (The Watersong Ends) (1967), trans. Anthony Kerrigan in Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda [Houghton Mifflin, 1990, ISBN 0-395-54418-1] (p. 500).

„When I was a boy the Dead Sea was only sick.“

—  George Burns American comedian, actor, and writer 1896 - 1996

„The Bible is God's chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on rocks or bars.“

—  Henry Ward Beecher American clergyman and activist 1813 - 1887

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 28

„Wars, both civil and foreign, I undertook throughout the world, on sea and land, and when victorious I spared all citizens who sued for pardon. The foreign nations which could with safety be pardoned I preferred to save rather than to destroy.“

—  Augustus, book Res Gestae Divi Augusti

Res Gestae Divi Augusti

„The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.“

—  Jacques-Yves Cousteau French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher 1910 - 1997

„When I was older
I was a sailor
On an open sea
But now I'm underwater
And my skin is paler
Than it should ever be“

—  Billie Eilish American singer-songwriter 2001

When I Was Older, Music Inspired by the Film Roma (9 January 2019)
Singles (2017 - )

„Look when the clouds are blowing
And all the winds are free:
In fury of their going
They fall upon the sea.
But though the blast is frantic,
And though the tempest raves,
The deep immense Atlantic
Is still beneath the waves.“

—  Frederic William Henry Myers English poet and essayist 1843 - 1901

Wind, Moon and Tides.

„The sea is calm you said. Peaceful. Calm above, but below a world of gliding monsters preying on their fellows. Murderers, all of them. Only the strongest teeth survive. And who's to tell me it's any different here on board, or yonder on dry land.“

—  Peter Ustinov English actor, writer, and dramatist 1921 - 2004

Master At Arms Claggert
Billy Budd (1962)

„He took a beating twice at sea, And threw two fleets away. So now to achieve one victory, He tosses dice all day.“

—  Augustus founder of Julio-Claudian dynasty and first emperor of the Roman Empire -63 - 14 BC

Postquam bis classe victus naves perdidit, Aliquando ut vincat, ludit assidue aleam.
A popular rhyme at the time of the Sicilian war, mocking Augustus' habit of playing dice; in Suetonius, Divus Augustus, paragraph 70. Translation: Robert Graves, 1957.

„I love borders. August is the border between summer and autumn; it is the most beautiful month I know.

Twilight is the border between day and night, and the shore is the border between sea and land. The border is longing: when both have fallen in love but still haven't said anything. The border is to be on the way. It is the way that is the most important thing.“

—  Tove Jansson Finnish children's writer and illustrator 1914 - 2001

„Never hesitate to go far away, beyond all seas, all frontiers, all countries, all beliefs.“

—  Amin Maalouf, book Leo Africanus

Source: Leo Africanus

„Our dreams have been doctored. We belong no where. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough. To matter..“

—  Arundhati Roy Indian novelist, essayist 1961

„Castles made of sand, fall in the sea, eventually“

—  Jimi Hendrix American musician, singer and songwriter 1942 - 1970

Castles Made Of Sand
Song lyrics, Axis: Bold as Love (1967)

„The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.“

—  Joseph Conrad, book The Mirror of the Sea

Source: The Mirror of the Sea (1906), Ch. 35
Context: For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) have professed to feel for it, for all the celebrations it had been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.

„Palestine is Arab and must be liberated from the river to the sea and all the Zionists who emigrated to the land of Palestine must leave.“

—  Saddam Hussein Iraqi politician and President 1937 - 2006

On Iraqi Television, May 30, 2001; quoted in Robert Wistrich, Muslim Anti-Semitism: A Clear and Present Danger(2002), page 43.

„I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.“

—  Mary Oliver American writer 1935 - 2019

Source: A Thousand Mornings

„I dare not think of the sun-drenched beaches and the stormy skies, and of the joy of painting them in the sea breezes.“

—  Eugène Boudin French painter 1824 - 1898

Quote in a letter, from Paris 14 June 1869, to family-friend Ferdinand Martin; as cited by Colin B. Bailey in The Annenberg Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-impressionism, publisher, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2009, p. 7
Boudin felt himself detained in the big city Paris and longed fort the beach
1850s - 1870s

„A great wind came forth, the clouds rose on high.
Now that my might rules all within the seas, I have returned to my old village.
Where will I find brave men to guard the four corners of my land?“

—  Emperor Gaozu of Han founding emperor of the Han Dynasty (256 BC - 195 BC) -256 - -195 BC

Translated by Burton Watson
大風歌 Song of the Great Wind
Original: (zh_Hant) 大風起兮雲飛揚，
威加海內兮歸故鄉，
安得猛士兮守四方。

„I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love —
I and my Annabel Lee —“

—  Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee

St. 2.
Annabel Lee (1849)
Context: I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love —
I and my Annabel Lee —
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.