“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.”
Source: The Book of Disquiet
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Fernando Pessoa288
Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publi… 1888–1935Related quotes
Grace Hopper (1906–1992) American computer scientist and United States Navy officer
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/ <br class="br">Misattributed
“If one does not know to which port is sailing, no wind is favorable.”
Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist
“A ship should not ride on a single anchor, nor life on a single hope.”
Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece
Fragment xvi.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus, Fragments
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician
Josephus Daniels, ambassador to Mexico, sent this quotation to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 1, 1936, in a note of New Year greetings, with this comment: "Here is an expression from Holmes which, if it has missed you, is so good you may find a use for it in one of your 'fireside' talks". Reported in Carroll Kilpatrick, ed., Roosevelt and Daniels (1952), p. 159.
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
“Every ship is a romantic object, except that we sail in.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson book Experience
1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience
Stuart Merrill (1863–1915) American poet, who wrote mostly in the French language
Sonore immensité des mers de l’Harmonie,
Où les rêves, vaisseaux pris d’un vaste frisson,
Voguent vers l’inconnu, leur voilure infinie
Claquant aven angoisse aux bourrasques du Son!
"Pendant qu’elle chantait", from Les gammes, translated by Catherine Perry and Henry Weinfield in The White Tomb: Selected Writing, Talisman House, 1999.
“Like ships, that sailed for sunny isles,
But never came to shore.”
Thomas Kibble Hervey (1799–1859) British poet and critic
The Devil's Progress (1849)
“What wings are to a bird, and sails to a ship, so is prayer to the soul.”
Corrie ten Boom (1892–1983) Dutch resistance hero and writer
“I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.”
Louisa May Alcott book Little Women
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)