“I read somewhere — and the person who wrote this was not a mountaineer but a sailor — that the sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.”

—  Primo Levi

"Bear Meat" in The New Yorker (8 January 2007) http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2007/01/08/070108fi_fiction_levi?currentPage=all
Context: I read somewhere — and the person who wrote this was not a mountaineer but a sailor — that the sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don’t know much about the sea, but I do know that that’s the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I read somewhere — and the person who wrote this was not a mountaineer but a sailor — that the sea’s only gifts are har…" by Primo Levi?
Primo Levi photo
Primo Levi 44
Italian chemist, memoirist, short story writer, novelist, e… 1918–1987

Related quotes

Jon Krakauer photo
Miranda July photo
Woodrow Wilson photo

“The only reason I read a book is because I cannot see and converse with the man who wrote it.”

Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)

Speech in Kansas City (12 May 1905), PWW (The Papers of Woodrow Wilson) 16:99
Unsourced variant: I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it.
1900s

Taliesin photo
Carlos Ruiz Zafón photo
Van Morrison photo

“Hark, now hear the sailors cry,
Smell the sea and feel the sky.
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic.”

Van Morrison (1945) Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician

Into the Mystic
Song lyrics, Moondance (1970)

“To jump occasionally into the pit is common to all who visit the mountain, and to some who keep on the plain; but the madness to which I have alluded consists in rapid alternations from the mountain to the pit”

Alexander Bryan Johnson (1786–1867) United States philosopher and banker

The Philosophical Emperor, a Political Experiment, or, The Progress of a False Position: (1841)
Context: To jump occasionally into the pit is common to all who visit the mountain, and to some who keep on the plain; but the madness to which I have alluded consists in rapid alternations from the mountain to the pit, annoying all persons who are forced, by friendship or consanguinity, to consort with the unfortunate maniacs. To remain permanently either on the pinnacle or in the abyss is deemed a species of the same disorder, though not so common.

Mary Howitt photo

“The wild sea roars and lashes the granite cliffs below,
And round the misty islets the loud strong tempests blow.”

Mary Howitt (1799–1888) English poet, and author

The Sea-Fowler, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Related topics