Quotes about oar

A collection of quotes on the topic of oar, boat, men, sea.

Quotes about oar

Richard Aldington photo

“I dream of silent verses where the rhyme
Glides noiseless as an oar.”

Richard Aldington (1892–1962) English writer and poet

From At the British Museum Collected Poems, 1929

Sappho photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Richard Henry Dana Jr. photo
Carl Barron photo
Miguel de Cervantes photo

“He has an oar in every man's boat, and a finger in every pie.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 22.

Kate Chopin photo
Richard Halliburton photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Robert Oppenheimer photo
K. R. Narayanan photo
Roger Bacon photo

“I use the example of the rainbow and of the phenomena connected with it, of which sort are the circle around the sun and the stars, likewise the rod lying at the side of the sun or of a star which appears to the eye in a straight line… called the rod by Seneca, and the circle is called the corona, which often has the colors of the rainbow. But neither Aristotle nor Avicenna, in their Natural Histories, has given us knowledge of things of this sort, nor has Seneca, who composed a special book on them. But Experimental Science makes certain of them. [The experimenter] considers rowers and he finds the same colors in the falling drops dripping from the raised oars when the solar rays penetrate drops of this sort. It is the same with waters falling from the wheels of a mill; and when a man sees the drops of dew in summer of a morning lying on the grass in the meadow or the field, he will see the colors. And in the same way when it rains, if he stands in a shady place and if the rays beyond it pass through dripping moisture, then the colors will appear in the shadow nearby; and very frequently of a night colors appear around the wax candle. Moreover, if a man in summer, when he rises from sleep and while his eyes are yet only partly opened, looks suddenly toward an aperture through which a ray of the sun enters, he will see colors. And if, while seated beyond the sun, he extend his hat before his eyes, he will see colors; and in the same way if he closes his eye, the same thing happens under the shade of the eyebrow; and again, the same phenomenon occurs through a glass vessel filled with water, placed in the rays of the sun. Or similarly if any one holding water in his mouth sprinkles it vigorously into the rays and stands to the side of the rays; and if rays in the proper position pass through an oil lamp hanging in the air, so that the light falls on the surface of the oil, colors will be produced. And so in an infinite number of ways, as well natural as artificial, colors of this sort appear, as the careful experimenter is able to discover.”

6th part Experimental Science, Ch.2 Tr. Richard McKeon, Selections from Medieval Philosophers Vol.2 Roger Bacon to William of Ockham
Opus Majus, c. 1267

John Muir photo

“"The water in music the oar forsakes." The air in music the wing forsakes. All things move in music and write it. The mouse, lizard, and grasshopper sing together on the Turlock sands, sing with the morning stars.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

letter to Mrs. Ezra S. Carr, from Yosemite Valley (September 1874); published in William Federic Badè, The Life and Letters of John Muir http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/life_and_letters/default.aspx (1924), chapter 11: On Widening Currents <!-- Terry Gifford, LLO, page 203 -->
(Presumably paraphrasing from the poem Woodnotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Come learn with me the fatal song / Which knits the world in music strong / … / and the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake / The wood is wiser far than thou".)
(Turlock: Town where Muir changed from railroad to foot travel in this particular journey from Oakland, California, to Yosemite Valley.)
1870s

“I don't believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them. My philosophy is to stay as close as possible to what's happening. If I can't solve something, how the hell can I expect my managers to?”

Harold Geneen (1910–1997) American businessman

from an interview for an article in The New York Times (1977), as cited in " Harold S. Geneen, 87, Dies; Nurtured AT&T http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/23/business/harold-s-geneen-87-dies-nurtured-itt.html?pagewanted=all" published 23 November 1997 in The New York Times.

Silius Italicus photo

“Then the shouting of the sailors, which had long been rising from the open sea, filled all the shore with its sound; and, when the rowers all together brought the oars back sharply to their breasts, the sea foamed under the stroke of a hundred blades.”
At patulo surgens iam dudum ex aequore late nauticus implebat resonantia litora clamor, et simul adductis percussa ad pectora tonsis centeno fractus spumabat verbere pontus.

Book XI, lines 487–490
Punica

John Ogilby photo
Joseph Goebbels photo

“I put down the oars and float endlessly as if to the eternal shore. Blue light of the moon shines on my sail. My boat is gliding to a secure haven. Only silent waves break against it. Deepest silence surrounds me and my soul builds a golden bridge to a star.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Ich lege die Ruder ein und fahre endlos, wie einem ewigen Gestade zu. Mondlicht spielt blau auf meinem Segel. Mein Nachen gleitet in einen sicheren Hafen. Nur leise schlagen die Wellen an meinen Kahn. Die tiefste Stille ist um mich, und meine Seele spannt eine goldene Brücke zu einem Stern.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

James Joyce photo

“Loveward above the glancing oar”

Watching The Needleboats At San Sabba, p. 10
Pomes Penyeach (1927)

Thomas Moore photo

“Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.”

Thomas Moore (1779–1852) Irish poet, singer and songwriter

Poems Relating to America. A Canadian Boat Song, st. 1.

Theodore L. Cuyler photo
A.E. Housman photo
Francis Parkman photo
Rose Wilder Lane photo
Bion of Borysthenes photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
John Greenleaf Whittier photo

“Low stir of leaves and dip of oars
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.”

John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery

Snow Bound, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Wentworth Dillon, 4th Earl of Roscommon photo
Hugh Blair photo
Garth Nix photo

“Flotsam floats when all is sunk.
Jetsam thrown isn't just junk.
Coughs and colds and bright red sores
Waiting for us, so bend yer oars!”

Garth Nix (1963) Australian fantasy writer

Source: The Keys to the Kingdom series, Drowned Wednesday (2005), p. 53.

Luís de Camões photo

“You saw, with what unheard of insolence
The highest heavens they did invade of yore:
You saw, how (against reason, against sense)
They did invade the sea with sail and oar:
Actions so proud, so daring, so immense,
You saw; and we see daily more, and more:
That in few years (I fear) of heaven and sea,
Men, will be called gods; and but men, we.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Vistes que, com grandíssima ousadia,
Foram já cometer o Céu supremo;
Vistes aquela insana fantasia
De tentarem o mar com vela e remo;
Vistes, e ainda vemos cada dia,
Soberbas e insolências tais, que temo
Que do Mar e do Céu, em poucos anos,
Venham Deuses a ser, e nós, humanos.
Stanza 29 (tr. Richard Fanshawe); council of the sea gods.
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto VI

Leo Tolstoy photo
Kathleen Raine photo
Joanna Baillie photo

“Oh, swiftly glides the bonnie boat,
Just parted from the shore,
And to the fisher's chorus-note,
Soft moves the dipping oar!”

Joanna Baillie (1762–1851) Scottish poet and dramatist

Song, Oh, Swiftly glides the Bonnie Boat; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 74.

Lucius Cornelius Sulla photo

“He ought to have worked at the oar before steering the vessel.”

Lucius Cornelius Sulla (-138–-78 BC) Ancient Roman general, dictator

Upon being handed the head of his enemy Gaius Marius the Younger http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DM%3Aentry+group%3D10%3Aentry%3Dmarius-bio-2 (Also translated as: "First you must learn to pull an oar, only then can you take the helm")

Joseph Strutt photo
Francis de Sales photo

“There are no galley-slaves in the royal vessel of divine love—every man works his oar voluntarily!”

Francis de Sales (1567–1622) French bishop, saint, writer and Doctor of the Church j

Quoted by Bishop Jean-Pierre Camus in The Spirit of Saint Francis de Sales, ch. 7, sct. 3 (1952)

Robert Frost photo

“Two such as you with such a master speed
Cannot be parted nor be swept away
From one another once you are agreed
That life is only life forevermore
Together wing to wing and oar to oar.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

"The Master Speed"; the last line is Inscribed beneath his wife's name on the gravestone of Frost and his wife, Elinor
1930s

William Cowper photo

“But oars alone can ne'er prevail
To reach the distant coast;
The breath of Heaven must swell the sail,
Or all the toil is lost.”

William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist

"Human Frailty", line 21 (1779).

Alfred, Lord Tennyson photo