Quotes about sailing (367 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“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)

For Team , Learning

“You know it's never fifty-fifty in a marriage. It's always seventy-thirty, or sixty-forty. Someone falls in love first. Someone puts someone else up on a pedestal. Someone works very hard to keep things rolling smoothly; someone else sails along for the ride.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Mercy (1996)

Love , Marriage

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Source: P.S. I Love You

Courageous , Success , Life , Dreams

“We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”

Dolly Parton (1946) American singer-songwriter and actress

“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Life , Pain

“The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

People , Books , World , Travel

“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 (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Sadness , Dreams , Joy , Sea

“Bob says hello," He told the stars.
The Argo II sailed into the night.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Variant: Bob says hello," he told the stars.
Source: The House of Hades

Star , Night

“We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.”

Carl Sagan book Cosmos

Source: Cosmos (1980), p. 193
Context: We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew with undiminished wonder: What are the stars? Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.

Star

“A soft Sea washed around the House
A Sea of Summer Air
And rose and fell the magic Planks
That sailed without a care —
For Captain was the Butterfly
For Helmsman was the Bee
And an entire universe
For the delighted crew.”

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet

Universe , Bee , Summer , Housing

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but the attribution cannot be verified. The quote should not be regarded as authentic. — Twainquotes http://www.twainquotes.com/Discovery.html
Actually from the 1990 book P. S. I Love You' https://books.google.com/books?id=5OORXU6rlGIC&q=bowlines#v=onepage&q=bowlines&f=false' by H. Jackson Brown.
Misattributed

Courageous , Success , Life , Dreams

“To run over better waters the little vessel of my genius now hoists her sails, as she leaves behind her a sea so cruel.”

Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio

Canto I, lines 1–3 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio

Water , Sea

“On that day all the gods looked down from heaven upon the ship and the might of the heroes, half-divine, the bravest of men then sailing the sea.”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

Source: Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book I. Preparation and Departure, Lines 547–549 (tr. R. C. Seaton)

Men , God , Sea

“In the nineteenth century some parts of the world were unexplored, but there was almost no restriction on travel. Up to 1914 you did not need a passport for any country except Russia. The European emigrant, if he could scrape together a few pounds for the passage, simply set sail for America or Australia, and when he got there no questions were asked. In the eighteenth century it had been quite normal and safe to travel in a country with which your own country was at war.”

George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist

"As I Please," Tribune (12 May 1944)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/</sup>
"As I Please" (1943–1947)

War , World , Travel , Question

“Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Tears, Idle Tears

St. 2
Tears, Idle Tears (1850)

Love , Sadness

“Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse.”

Johannes Kepler Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo

Translated by Edward Rosen, Kepler's Conversation with Galileo's Sidereal Messenger (1965), p. 39
Unsourced variant translation: Provide ships or sails fit for the winds of heaven, and some will brave even that great void.
Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo (1610)
Context: It is not improbable, I must point out, that there are inhabitants not only on the moon but on Jupiter too, or (as was delightfully remarked at a recent gathering of certain philosophers) that those areas are now being unveiled for the first time. But as soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking. Who would once have thought that the crossing of the wide ocean was calmer and safer than of the narrow Adriatic Sea, Baltic Sea, or English Channel? Given ships or sails adapted to the breezes of heaven, there will be those who will not shrink from even that vast expanse. Therefore, for the sake of those who, as it were, will presently be on hand to attempt this voyage, let us establish the astronomy, Galileo, you of Jupiter, and me of the moon.

“Some say cavalry and others claim
infantry or a fleet of long oars
is the supreme sight on the black earth.
I say it is

the one you love. And easily proved.
Didn't Helen, who far surpassed all
mortals in beauty, desert the best
of men, her king,

and sail off to Troy and forget
her daughter and her dear parents? Merely
Aphrodite's gaze made her readily bend
and led her far

from her path. These tales remind me now
of Anaktoria who isn't here,
yet I
for one

would rather see her warm supple step
and the sparkle in her face than watch all
the chariots in Lydia and foot soldiers armored
in glittering bronze.”

Sappho (-630–-570 BC) ancient Greek lyric poet

Fragment 16 Voigt
The Willis Barnstone translations, Supreme Sight on the Black Earth

Love , Men , Beauty , Parent

“Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson book Ulysses

Source: Ulysses (1842), l. 54-62
Context: The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices.
Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.

World , Star

“So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there that the sea and sky looked all one fabric, as if sails were stuck high up in the sky, or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.”

Virginia Woolf book To the Lighthouse

Source: To the Lighthouse

Good Morning , Sea

“There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes to where life is not painful; nor is there a port of call where it is possible to forget.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Source: The Book of Disquiet

Life , Pain , Forgetting

“A sail boat that sails backwards can never see the sun rise.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Sun

“The world is a globe — the farther you sail, the closer to home you are.”

Terry Pratchett book Nation

Source: Nation

World , Home , Funny

“Don't go getting full of yourself becuase once you do, somebody's going to come and let the wind out of your sails”

Sharon G. Flake book The Skin I'm In

Source: The Skin I'm In

“Then sail, my fine lady, on the billowing wave -
The water below is as dark as the grave,
And maybe you'll sink in your little blue boat -
It's hope, and hope only, that keeps us afloat”

Margaret Atwood book The Penelopiad

Source: The Penelopiad

Hope , Water

“[on buying a private island] Money doesn't buy you happiness, but it buys you a big enough yacht to sail right up to it.”

Johnny Depp (1963) American actor, film producer, and musician

Money , Happiness

“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

Soul , Bird

“You are uneasy; you never sailed with me before, I see.”

Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States

Remark to an elderly gentleman who was sailing with Jackson down Chesapeake Bay in an old steamboat, and who exhibited a little fear. Life of Jackson (Parton). Vol. iii. p. 493.

“Sailing is necessary, living is not necessary.”

Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet

Ibid., pp. 133, 262
This has been attributed to Pessoa. Indeed, it is from Plutarch's "Parallel Lives", about Pompeus, when demanding that soldiers board the ships, when they were afraid of dying at sea.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Navegar é preciso, viver não é preciso.

“Most men are scantily nourished on a modicum of happiness and a number of empty thoughts which life lays on their plates. They are kept in the road of life through stern necessity by elemental duties which they cannot avoid.
Again and again their will-to-live becomes, as it were, intoxicated: spring sunshine, opening flowers, moving clouds, waving fields of grain — all affect it. The manifold will-to-live, which is known to us in the splendid phenomena in which it clothes itself, grasps at their personal wills. They would fain join their shouts to the mighty symphony which is proceeding all around them. The world seem beauteous…but the intoxication passes. Dreadful discords only allow them to hear a confused noise, as before, where they had thought to catch the strains of glorious music. The beauty of nature is obscured by the suffering which they discover in every direction. And now they see again that they are driven about like shipwrecked persons on the waste of ocean, only that the boat is at one moment lifted high on the crest of the waves and a moment later sinks deep into the trough; and that now sunshine and now darkening clouds lie on the surface of the water.
And now they would fain persuade themselves that land lies on the horizon toward which they are driven. Their will-to-live befools their intellect so that it makes efforts to see the world as it would like to see it. It forces this intellect to show them a map which lends support to their hope of land. Once again they essay to reach the shore, until finally their arms sink exhausted for the last time and their eyes rove desperately from wave to wave. …
Thus it is with the will-to-live when it is unreflective.
But is there no way out of this dilemma? Must we either drift aimlessly through lack of reflection or sink in pessimism as the result of reflection? No. We must indeed attempt the limitless ocean, but we may set our sails and steer a determined course.”

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher

Source: The Spiritual Life (1947), p. 256

Life , Men , Lie , World

“This quiet roof, where dove-sails saunter by,
Between the pines, the tombs, throbs visibly.
Impartial noon patterns the sea in flame —
That sea forever starting and re-starting.
When thought has had its hour, oh how rewarding
Are the long vistas of celestial calm!”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Ce toit tranquille, où marchent des colombes,
Entre les pins palpite, entre les tombes;
Midi le juste y compose de feux
La mer, la mer, toujours recommencée
O récompense après une pensée
Qu'un long regard sur le calme des dieux!
Le Cimetière Marin · Online original and translation as "The Graveyard By The Sea" by C. Day Lewis http://unix.cc.wmich.edu/%7Ecooneys/poems/fr/valery.daylewis.html
Variant translations:
The sea, the ever renewing sea!
Charmes ou poèmes (1922)

Sea

“The Germans themselves I should regard as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other races through immigration or intercourse. For in former times, it was not by land but on shipboard that those who sought to emigrate would arrive; and the boundless and, so to speak, hostile ocean beyond us, is seldom entered by a sail from our world.”

Tacitus book Germania

Source: Germania (98), Chapter 2

Hostility , World , Time

“The boat dipped and swayed and sometimes took on water, but it did not sink; the two brothers had waterproofed it well. I do not know where it finally fetched up, if it ever did; perhaps it reached the sea and sails there forever like a magic boat in a fairytale. All I know is that it was still afloat and still running on the breast of the flood when it passed the incorporated town limits of Derry, Maine, and there it passes out of this tale forever.”

Stephen King book It

It (1986)

Fairytale , Water , Sea

“Success soon palls. The joyous time is, when the breeze first strikes your sails, and the waters rustle under your bows.”

Charles Buxton (1823–1871) English brewer, philanthropist, writer and politician

Source: Notes of Thought (1883), p. 91

Water , Time , Success

“Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.”

John Updike (1932–2009) American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic

Hugging the Shore, foreword (1983)

Sea

“The blighter that is at the end of the sea
On the pitch-black night raised itself flying;
Round the vessel it flew three times,
Three times it flew creaking,
And said, 'Who dared pierce
Into my dens that I do not reveal,
My black ceilings of the end of the world?'
And the helmsman said, trembling,
'His Majesty King John the Second!'

'Whose sails are these then which I rub against?
Whose the keels I see and hear?'
Said the blighter, and rolled three times,
Three times it rolled filthy and bulky,
'Who attempts what is solely my power,
I who abide where no one ever could see me
And who drip the fears of the depthless sea?'
And the helmsman trembled, and said,
'His Majesty King John the Second!'

Three times he raised his hands from the helm,
Three times he had them rooted on the helm,
And said after trembling three times,
'Here at the helm I am more than myself:
I am a People who wants the sea that is yours;
And more than the blighter, that my soul fears
And rolls on the darkness of the end of the world,
Orders the will, that ties me at the helm,
Of His Majesty King John the Second!'”

Fernando Pessoa book Mensagem

Poem "O Mostrengo" http://www.inverso.pt/Mensagem/MarPortugues/mostrengo.htm, lines 1–9, trans. Charles Eglington ( Listen to the poem on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Ihd-ECpYM)
Message

People , World , Fear , Soul

“Since the dawn of history the negro has owned the continent of Africa - rich beyond the dream of poet's fancy, crunching acres of diamonds beneath his bare black feet. Yet he never picked one up from the dust until a white man showed to him its glittering light. His land swarmed with powerful and docile animals, yet he never dreamed a harness, cart, or sled. A hunter by necessity, he never made an axe, spear, or arrowhead worth preserving beyond the moment of its use. He lived as an ox, content to graze for an hour. In a land of stone and timber he never sawed a foot of lumber, carved a block, or built a house save of broken sticks and mud. With league on league of ocean strand and miles of inland seas, for four thousand years he watched their surface ripple under the wind, heard the thunder of the surf on his beach, the howl of the storm over his head, gazed on the dim blue horizon calling him to worlds that lie beyond, and yet he never dreamed a sail!”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Falsely attributed to Darwin, but actually from The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan (1905) by Thomas Dixon, page 134 http://www.freefictionbooks.org/books/c/11773-the-clansman-by-thomas-dixon?start=133.
Misattributed

Lie , World , Dreams , History

“We'd be making sail in the dawn, with a fair breeze, singing a chanty song wid no care to it. And astern the land would be sinking low and dying out, but we'd give it no heed but a laugh, and never look behind. For the day that was, was enough, for we was free men — and I'm thinking 'tis only slaves do be giving heed to the day that's gone or the day to come — until they're old like me.”

Eugene O'Neill The Hairy Ape

Paddy: Scene 1
The Hairy Ape (1922)

Men , Thinking , Singing

“Let him who loves, where love success may find,
Spread all his sails before the prosp'rous wind;
But let poor youths who female scorn endure,
And hopeless burn, repair to me for cure.”
Siquis amat quod amare iuvat, feliciter ardens Gaudeat, et vento naviget ille suo. At siquis male fert indignae regna puellae, Ne pereat, nostrae sentiat artis opem.

Ovid book Remedia amoris

Source: Remedia Amoris (The Cure for Love), Lines 13-16

Love , Youth , Success

“The visas came through in 1955, when I was 15. That June, we sailed for New York aboard the Conte Biancamano. When we passed the Statue of Liberty, Anna Maria [my sister] tried to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner".”

Mario Andretti (1940) Italian-American racing driver

"Coming to America -- In the Fast Lane," "House Call," "Mansion," The Wall Street Journal (3 August 2018), M1
2010s

Star , Sister , Singing

“In Western Australia they don't even know how to make that vital piece of sailing-boat equipment, the gin and tonic.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Holidays in Hell

Holidays in Hell (1989)

“I fear, too early. For my mind misgives
Some consequence, yet hanging in the stars,
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels, and expire the term
Of a despisèd life, closed in my breast,
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
But He that hath the steerage of my course
Direct my sail!”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Life , Death , Fear , Star

“How long are the party cartel and the job carousel going to abuse our patience, when the flagship of renaissance is ready to set sail?”

Thierry Baudet (1983) Dutch writer and jurist

Quo usque tandem factionem cartellum et officiorum machina patientia nostra abutitur dum navis praetoria resurrectionis ad profiscendum parata est?
Hoelang stellen het partijkartel en de baantjescarrousel ons geduld nog op de proef terwijl het vlaggenschip van de renaissancevloot klaarligt?
60th Plenary Session of the Tweede Kamer. https://www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/plenaire_verslagen/detail/fe96bbcd-c77d-4e32-9f78-481d7921f379 Maiden speech in Parliament on 28 March 2017.
Modelled after the opening line of Cicero’s famous Catiline Orations: Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?
In English: “How long will you, Catiline, abuse our patience?”
Baudet makes several grammatical mistakes, namely, declining factio in the accusative singular factionem instead of the genitive plural factionum, conjugating abutor, abuti in the third-person singular present active indicative abutitur instead of the third-person plural present abutuntur or the third-person plural future abutentur, and declining proficiscor into the accusative gerund as *profiscendum instead of proficiscendum.
A grammatically correct version would read: Quo usque tandem factionum cartellum et officiorum machina patientia nostra abutuntur dum navis praetoria resurrectionis ad proficiscendum parata est?

Patience

“William inherited very large possessions, part of which consisted of crown debts, due to the vice-admiral for sums he had advanced for the sea-service. No moneys were at that time less secure than those owing from the king. Penn was obliged to go, more than once, and "thee" and "thou" Charles and his ministers, to recover the debt; and at last, instead of specie, the government invested him with the right and sovereignty of a province of America, to the south of Maryland. Thus was a Quaker raised to sovereign power.
He set sail for his new dominions with two ships filled with Quakers, who followed his fortune. The country was then named by them Pennsylvania, from William Penn; and he founded Philadelphia, which is now a very flourishing city. His first care was to make an alliance with his American neighbors; and this is the only treaty between those people and the Christians that was not ratified by an oath, and that was never infringed. The new sovereign also enacted several wise and wholesome laws for his colony, which have remained invariably the same to this day. The chief is, to ill-treat no person on account of religion, and to consider as brethren all those who believe in one God. He had no sooner settled his government than several American merchants came and peopled this colony. The natives of the country, instead of flying into the woods, cultivated by degrees a friendship with the peaceable Quakers. They loved these new strangers as much as they disliked the other Christians, who had conquered and ravaged America. In a little time these savages, as they are called, delighted with their new neighbors, flocked in crowds to Penn, to offer themselves as his vassals. It was an uncommon thing to behold a sovereign "thee'd" and "thou'd" by his subjects, and addressed by them with their hats on; and no less singular for a government to be without one priest in it; a people without arms, either for offence or preservation; a body of citizens without any distinctions but those of public employments; and for neighbors to live together free from envy or jealousy. In a word, William Penn might, with reason, boast of having brought down upon earth the Golden Age, which in all probability, never had any real existence but in his dominions.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Variants:
No oaths, no seals, no official mummeries were used; the treaty was ratified on both sides with a yea, yea — the only one, says Voltaire, that the world has known, never sworn to and never broken.
As quoted in William Penn : An Historical Biography (1851) by William Hepworth Dixon
William Penn began by making a league with the Americans, his neighbors. It is the only one between those natives and the Christians which was never sworn to, and the only one that was never broken.
As quoted in American Pioneers (1905), by William Augustus Mowry and Blanche Swett Mowry, p. 80
It was the only treaty made by the settlers with the Indians that was never sworn to, and the only one that was never broken.
As quoted in A History of the American Peace Movement (2008) by Charles F. Howlett, and ‎Robbie Lieberman, p. 33
The History of the Quakers (1762)

Money , God , Sea , Religion

“The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,
Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Variant: Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.
Source: Leaves of Grass

Life

“Success is a finished book, a stack of pages each of which is filled with words. If you reach that point, you have won a victory over yourself no less impressive than sailing single-handed around the world.”

Tom Clancy (1947–2013) American author

Books , World , Success , Victory

“set sail on a voyage of your own titanic facts”

Mary Pope Osborne (1949) American children's writer

“I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Love , Sea

“The woman will sit eternally in the tall black armchair. I will be the one woman you will never have… excessive living weighs down the imagination: we will not live, we will only write and talk to swell the sails.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

Imagination

“As for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.”

Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet

Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Love , Sea

“He rested sitting on the un-stepped mast and sail and tried not to think but only to endure.”

Ernest Hemingway book The Old Man and the Sea

Source: The Old Man and the Sea

Thinking

“Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Fear

“I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way.”

John Paul Jones (1747–1792) American naval officer

Letter to Le Ray de Chaumont (16 November 1778), as quoted in The Naval History of the United States (1890) by Willis John Abbot, p. 82

Way

“I am sailing with thee through the dizzy sky!
How beautiful thou art!”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

Beauty , Art

“Come, my love, we have oceans to sail.”

Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor

Source: , said the shotgun to the head.

Love

“There was a sound in the background like a distant sheep coughing gently on a mountainside. Jeeves sailing into action.”

P.G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) English author

Joy in the Morning (1947)
Source: Jeeves in the Morning

Distant

“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

"Remarks in Newport at the Australian Ambassador's Dinner for the America's Cup Crews (383)" (14 September 1962) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx
1962
Context: I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea — whether it is to sail or to watch it — we are going back from whence we came.

Sea

“Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars.”

Richard Halliburton (1900–1939) American writer

“There is no beauty or romance or mystery in the sea except for the men that sail abroad upon it, and those who stay at home and dream of them.”

Lord Dunsany (1878–1957) Irish writer and dramatist

Men , Beauty , Dreams , Home

“It also occurred to him that throughout history, humankind has told two stories: the story of a lost ship sailing the Mediterranean seas in quest of a beloved isle, and the story of a god who allows himself to be crucified on Golgotha.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Source: Collected Fictions

God , History , Sea

“And [he] sailed back over a year
and in and out of weeks
and through a day
and into the night of his very own room
where he found his supper waiting for him
and it was still hot”

Maurice Sendak book Where the Wild Things Are

Source: Where the Wild Things Are

Waiting , Night

“If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her! And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead.”

Sena Jeter Naslund (1942) American writer

Source: Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer

Life , Suffering , Time , Dead

“He sailed through the world guided only by the dim lights of impulse and habit, confident that his course would throw up no obstacles so large that they could not be plowed over with sheer force of momentum.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

World , Confidence , Light

“What child unable to sleep on a warm summer night hasn't thought he saw Peter Pan's sailing ship in the sky? I will teach you to see that ship.”

Roberto Cotroneo (1961) Italian journalist and writer

Sleep , Summer , Night

“I felt like time was a great sea, and I was floating on the back of a turtle, and no sails broke the horizon.”

Janet Fitch book White Oleander

Source: White Oleander

Time , Sea

“Stig: 'Of course, she'll sail rings around Wolfswind,'
Hal: 'Then why didn't you tell him that?'
Stig: 'I like my head where it is.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Outcasts

“We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Peaceful , World

“His blue eyes were seas where sorrow sailed.”

Dean Koontz book From the Corner of His Eye

Source: From the Corner of His Eye

Sea

“There was a single blue line of crayon drawn across every wall in the house. What does it mean? I asked. A pirate needs the sight of the sea, he said and then he pulled his eye patch down and turned and sailed away.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Housing , Sea

“She must find a boat and sail in it. No guarantee of shore. Only a conviction that what she wanted could exist, if she dared to find it.”

Jeanette Winterson book Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Source: Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

“Yeah." He took one last look at the cityscape of Rome, turning bloodred in the sunset. "Festus, raise the sails. We've got some friends to save.”

Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena

Source: The Mark of Athena

“… we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail among sacred islands of the mad till death shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

Source: The Collected Poems

Death , Imagination , Star , Madness

“We went sailing one time, and he wore a Speedo, and any smart woman should know that means bisexual at least.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

Time

“Time is a slippery thing: lose hold of it once, and its string might sail out of your hands forever.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Time

“I know how people are, with their habits of mind. Most will sail through from cradle to grave with a conscience clean as snow… I know people. Most have no earthly notion of the price of a snow-white conscience.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

People

“… this beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath…”

Gary Paulsen (1939) American writer and musher

Source: Caught by the Sea

Life , Beauty , Time , Perfection

“When you can’t change the direction of the wind — adjust your sails”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Attitude , Change

“When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century

“Maybe that is the best lesson I learned in my first semester at Yale, because if I had gone to a less-demanding school and continued to sail along on the top, I am sure I would never have attained the subsequent achievements in my life.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

Life , School , Learning

“That's what sailing is, a dance, and your partner is the sea. And with the sea you never take liberties. You ask her, you don't tell her. You have to remember always that she's the leader, not you. You and your boat are dancing to her tune.”

Michael Morpurgo (1943) British children's writer

Source: Alone on a Wide Wide Sea

Dance , Sea

“I challenge you to a duel!” screamed the cat, sailing over their heads on the swinging chandelier.”

Mikhail Bulgakov book The Master and Margarita

Source: The Master and Margarita

Cats

“Money can't buy happiness but it can buy a huge yacht that sails right next to it.”

David Lee Roth (1954) Rock vocalist; lead singer with Van Halen

Money , Happiness

“I wondered about the explorers who'd sailed their ships to the end of the world. How terrified they must have been when they risked falling over the edge; how amazed to discover, instead, places they had seen only in their dreams.”

Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care

Source: Handle with Care

World , Dreams

“I spent a long time trying to find my center until I looked closely at it one night & found it had wheels and moved easily in the slightest breeze. So now I spend less time sitting and more time sailing.”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

Source: Story People: Selected Stories & Drawings of Brian Andreas

Time , Night

“Life is like stepping onto a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.”

Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971) Japanese Buddhist missionary

Life , Sea

“I wish I was away in Ingo
Far across the briny sea
Sailing over deepest waters
Where neither care nor worry trouble me.”

Helen Dunmore book Ingo

Source: Ingo

Water , Sea

“You haven't lived until you've sailed”

David Sedaris (1956) American author

Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002

“Defeat I can endure with cheerfulness, my lady. But betrayal is like taking the wind from my sails, or the earth from beneath my feet. It chills my spirits like a rainy day, and all I can do is draw the curtains and cry into my pillow.”

Margaret George (1943) American writer

Source: Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles

Betrayal , Drawing , Cry

“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Secret , Star

“Happy is the man, I thought, who, before dying, has the good fortune to sail the Aegean sea.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek

Sea , Happiness

“If we had met five years ago, you wouldn't have found a more staunch defender of the newspaper industry than me … I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on TV shows, and judging journalism contests. So how could I possibly agree with people like Noam Chomsky and Ben Bagdikian, who were claiming the system didn't work, that it was steered by powerful special interests and corporations, and existed to protect the power elite? And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been. The reason I'd enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long hadn't been, as I'd assumed, because I was careful and diligent and good at my job … The truth was that, in all those years, I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress.”

Gary Webb (1955–2004) American investigative journalist

Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press.

People , Truth , Appearance

“Get the Titanic sailing correctly before you worry about the deck chairs.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

"105 Years of Illustrated Text" in the Zoetrope All-Story, Vol. 5 No. 1.
105 Years of Illustrated Text

“For example, we've all heard this one. Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies. Is it true? The answer matters. You'd feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding of reality, it's just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue”

Tim O'Brien book The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried (1990), How to Tell a True War Story

Way , Guy , Feeling , Reality

“Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Well-content,
Thou knowest of no strange continent;
Thou hast not felt thy bosom keep
A gentle motion with the deep;
Thou hast not sailed in Indian seas,
Where scent comes forth in every breeze.”

William Henry Davies (1871–1940) British poet

Sweet Stay-at-Home.

Home , Sea

“I can't believe that I would keep, keep you from flying
And I would cry a thousand more
if that's what it takes to sail you home.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

"1000 Oceans".
Songs

Home , Cry , Flying

“Only one ship is seeking us, a black-
Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back
A huge and birdless silence. In her wake
No waters breed or break.”

Philip Larkin book The Less Deceived

Next, Please
The Less Deceived (1955)

Silence , Water

“A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things.”

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/
Misattributed

Sea