
“Sailing is not a romantic song”
Interview with Christopher Cross on http://www.faceculture.com/ (date of interview: 2008-09-26). Video link found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49o3HpGCfHg&feature=related (retrieved 2011-04-07)
1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience
“Sailing is not a romantic song”
Interview with Christopher Cross on http://www.faceculture.com/ (date of interview: 2008-09-26). Video link found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49o3HpGCfHg&feature=related (retrieved 2011-04-07)
Epilogue
The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems (1907), The Flower of Old Japan
Context: p>Carol, every violet has
Heaven for a looking-glass!Every little valley lies
Under many-clouded skies;
Every little cottage stands
Girt about with boundless lands;
Every little glimmering pond
Claims the mighty shores beyond;
Shores no seaman ever hailed,
Seas no ship has ever sailed.All the shores when day is done
Fade into the setting sun,
So the story tries to teach
More than can be told in speech.</p
This saying appears to be due to John Augustus Shedd; it was quoted in "Grace Hopper : The Youthful Teacher of Us All" by Henry S. Tropp in Abacus Vol. 2, Issue 1 (Fall 1984) ISSN 0724-6722 . She did repeat this saying on multiple occasions, but she called it "a motto that has stuck with me" and did not claim coinage. Additional variations and citations may be found at Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/12/09/safe-harbor/
Misattributed
“Like ships, that sailed for sunny isles,
But never came to shore.”
The Devil's Progress (1849)
“What wings are to a bird, and sails to a ship, so is prayer to the soul.”
“I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.”
Amy, in Ch. 44 : My Lord and Lady
Variant: I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.
Source: Little Women (1868)
“I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep.”
The Old Ships (l. 1)
“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.”
Source: The Book of Disquiet
“I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship.”
volume I, chapter IX: "Life at Down", page 385 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=405&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image; letter http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-1489 to William Darwin Fox (24 October 1852)
quoted in At Home: A Short History of Private Life (2011) by Bill Bryson
The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)