Quotes about ship

A collection of quotes on the topic of ship, shipping, likeness, sea.

Quotes about ship

Mehmed II photo

“In order to see the boundaries of the probabilities, need to try impossible.”

Mehmed II (1432–1481) Ottoman sultan

During the fall of Constantinople, when he said that the ships would pass by land.

Xenophon photo

“When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot.”

Bk. 1, ch. 6; as translated by Henry Graham Dakyns in Cyropaedia (2004) p. 29.
Cyropaedia, 4th Century BC
Context: That... is the road to the obedience of compulsion. But there is a shorter way to a nobler goal, the obedience of the will. When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. You may prove this on all sides: you may see how the sick man will beg the doctor to tell him what he ought to do, how a whole ship’s company will listen to the pilot.

Rick Riordan photo
Louisa May Alcott photo

“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)

Xenophon photo
Samuel Taylor Coleridge photo
Marilyn Manson photo
Fernando Pessoa photo
Roald Dahl photo
Alex Jones photo

“Look, when you realize how fake it all is; the football, the basketball, the Lady Gaga, the Justin Bieber—you know, who gives you these carbon tax messages. They tell your kids they gotta love Justin Biebler [sic], and then Biebler [sic] says "hand in your guns", "pass the Cyber Security Act", and "the police state is good", and then your children are turned into a mindless vassals—who now, they look up to some twit, instead of looking up to Thomas Jefferson, or looking up to Nikola Tesla, or looking up to Magellan; I mean, kids, Magellan is a lot cooler than Justin Bieber! He circumnavigated with one ship the entire planet! He was killed by wild natives before they got back to Portugal! And when they got back there was only like eleven people alive of the two hundred and something crew and the entire ship was rotting down to the waterline! That's destiny! That's will! That's striving! That's being a trailblazer and explore! Going into space! Mathematics! Quantum mechanics! The secrets of the universe! It's all there! Life is fiery with its beauty! Its incredible detail! Tuning into it! They wanna shutter your mind, talking about Justin Bieber! It's pure evil! They're taking your intellect, your soul, and giving you Michael Jordan and Bieber. Unlock your human potential! Defeat the globalists who wanna shutter your mind!—Your doorways to perception!—I wanna see you truly live! I wanna see you truly be who you are!”

Alex Jones (1974) American radio host, author, conspiracy theorist and filmmaker

Alex Jones: The "Justin Biebler" Rant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDMB0KyhPN8, 21 February 2011.
2011

Paul Robeson photo
Homér photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Leonard Nimoy photo

“Rocket ships
are exciting
but so are roses
on a birthday.”

Leonard Nimoy (1931–2015) American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer

Source: Come Be With Me: A Collection of Poems

Douglas Adams photo
Louis-ferdinand Céline photo
Douglas Adams photo

“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.”

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

Shirin Ebadi photo

“I compare my situation to a person on board a ship. When there is a shipwreck the passenger then falls in the ocean and has no choice but to keep swimming. What happened in our society was that the laws overturned every right that women had. I had no choice. I could not get tired, I could not lose hope. I cannot afford to do that.”

Shirin Ebadi (1947) Iranian lawyer, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient

From 2006 interview with Ebadi by Harry Kreisler (translator, Banafsheh Keynoush) about her newly released book, Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope.
From May 10 2006 interview with Ebadi at Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley. http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people6/Ebadi/ebadi-con3.html (retrieved Oct. 15, 2008)

Hermann Göring photo

“The Russians are primitive folk. Besides, Bolshevism is something that stifles individualism and which is against my inner nature. Bolshevism is worse than National Socialism — in fact, it can't be compared to it. Bolshevism is against private property, and I am all in favor of private property. Bolshevism is barbaric and crude, and I am fully convinced that that atrocities committed by the Nazis, which incidentally I knew nothing about, were not nearly as great or as cruel as those committed by the Communists. I hate the Communists bitterly because I hate the system. The delusion that all men are equal is ridiculous. I feel that I am superior to most Russians, not only because I am a German but because my cultural and family background are superior. How ironic it is that crude Russian peasants who wear the uniforms of generals now sit in judgment on me. No matter how educated a Russian might be, he is still a barbaric Asiatic. Secondly, the Russian generals and the Russian government planned a war against Germany because we represented a threat to them ideologically. In the German state, I was the chief opponent of Communism. I admit freely and proudly that it was I who created the first concentration camps in order to put Communists in them. Did I ever tell you that funny story about how I sent to Spain a ship containing mainly bricks and stones, under which I put a single layer of ammunition which had been ordered by the Red government in Spain? The purpose of that ship was to supply the waning Red government with munitions. That was a good practical joke and I am proud of it because I wanted with all my heart to see Russian Communism in Spain defeated finally.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

To Leon Goldensohn (28 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

Chester W. Nimitz photo

“A ship is always referred to as "she" because it costs so much to keep her in paint and powder.”

Chester W. Nimitz (1885–1966) United States Navy fleet admiral

Remarks to the Society of Sponsors, U.S. Navy, 13 February 1940

Robert A. Heinlein photo
William Greenough Thayer Shedd photo

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.”

William Greenough Thayer Shedd (1820–1894) American theologian

Attributed without citation in Gary Ninneman, C.I.A.: Church in Atrophy (Xulon Press, 2006), p. 167. This is possibly a confusion with John Augustus Shedd.

Johannes Kepler photo

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

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.

Sylvia Plath photo
Sylvia Plath photo
Tamora Pierce photo
Tamora Pierce photo

“Well, label me very impressed and ship me to Carthak!”

Source: First Test

Virginia Woolf photo
Lewis Carroll photo

“The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships - and sealing wax - of cabbages and kings”

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

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

Lewis Carroll photo
Fernando Pessoa photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“Those who fall in love with practice without science are like a sailor who enters a ship without a helm or a compass, and who never can be certain whither he is going.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Christopher Morley photo

“When you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book.”

Variant: When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there’s all heaven and earth in a book, a real book I mean.
Source: Parnassus on Wheels

John Bunyan photo
Sarah Dessen photo
Jimmy Carter photo
Paul Watson photo
Mark Twain photo
Adele (singer) photo
Hippocrates photo
Thomas Edison photo
Richard Henry Dana Jr. photo

“The past was real. The present, all about me, was unreal, unnatural, repellent. I saw the big ships lying in the stream… the home of hardship and hopelessness; the boats passing to and fro; the cries of the sailors at the capstan or falls; the peopled beach; the large hide houses, with their gangs of men; and the Kanakas interspersed everywhere. All, all were gone! Not a vestige to mark where one hide house stood. The oven, too, was gone. I searched for its site, and found, where I thought it should be, a few broken bricks and bits of mortar. I alone was left of all, and how strangely was I here! What changes to me! Where were they all? Why should I care for them — poor Kanakas and sailors, the refuse of civilization, the outlaws and the beachcombers of the Pacific! Time and death seemed to transfigure them. Doubtless nearly all were dead; but how had they died, and where? In hospitals, in fever climes, in dens of vice, or falling from the mast, or dropping exhausted from the wreck "When for a moment, like a drop of rain/He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan/Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown." The lighthearted boys are now hardened middle-aged men, if the seas, rocks, fevers, and the deadlier enemies that beset a sailor's life on shore have spared them; and the then strong men have bowed themselves, and the earth or sea has covered them. How softening is the effect of time! It touches us through the affections. I almost feel as if I were lamenting the passing away of something loved and dear — the boats, the Kanakas, the hides, my old shipmates! Death, change, distance, lend them a character which makes them quite another thing.”

Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1815–1882) United States author and lawyer

Twenty-Four Years After (1869)

Nikola Tesla photo
James Cameron photo
Isaac Newton photo

“One [method] is by a Watch to keep time exactly. But, by reason of the motion of the Ship, the Variation of Heat and Cold, Wet and Dry, and the Difference of Gravity in different Latitudes, such a watch hath not yet been made.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Written in remarks to the 1714 Longitude committee; quoted in Longitude (1995) by Dava Sobel, p. 52 (i998 edition) ISBN 1-85702-571-7)
Board of Longitude

Angelus Silesius photo
Elon Musk photo

“I don’t get the little ship thing. You can’t show up at Mars in something the size of a rowboat. What if there are Martians? It would be so embarrassing.”

Elon Musk (1971) South African-born American entrepreneur

[Musk, Elon, I don't get the little ship thing, https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/965769366422798337]

Chris Colfer photo

“I feel like little bits of my soul are being shipped domestically.”

Chris Colfer (1990) actor, singer, book author

Chris Colfer on releasing his first book <ref name="MTV"> http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1689774/chris-colfer-land-of-stories-wishing-spell-novel.jhtml, Chris Colfer Shipping 'Bits Of My Soul' With His Novel
Interview Quotes, Random Quotes

Démosthenés photo

“For a house, I take it, or a ship or anything of that sort must have its chief strength in its substructure; and so too in affairs of state the principles and the foundations must be truth and justice.”

Démosthenés (-384–-322 BC) ancient greek statesman and orator

Olytnhiac II, 10 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0070%3Aspeech%3D2%3Asection%3D10

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“I endorse all that you say of the superior intelligence of the felidae. Never have I been able to associate the docile servility and satellitism of the canidae with mental power. Zoölogists seem to consider the cerebration of cats and dogs about 50-50—but my respect always goes to the cool, sure, impersonal, delicately poised feline who minds his business and never slobbers—the aristocratic, epicurean philosopher who knows what he wants and tells interlopers to go to hell. There is no credit in having a dog attached to one—for a dog can be conditioned to become anybody's slave and property. But a cat is nobody's slave. You do not own a cat. If one lives in your home, it is because he regards your way of life favourably, and accepts you as a friend, as one gentleman accepts another. He takes no kicks or insolence from anyone. If you are not worthy to associate with him, he will depart to seek an environment more suited to a gentleman's taste. Therefore he who retains the respect and companionship of a feline has proven himself to be essentially a superior citizen. For a human being, membership in the Kappa Alpha Tau forms a badge of distinction. Many are the eminent names on that member ship list—Mahomet himself, Richelieu, Poe, Baudelaire... one could catalogue them endlessly. Certainly, I ask no greater honour than to be accounted a citizen of Ulthar beyond the River Skai!”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to E. Hoffmann Price (29 July 1936), published in Selected Letters Vol. V, p. 290
Non-Fiction, Letters, to E. Hoffmann Price

Olaudah Equiano photo
Barack Obama photo

“I think Governor Romney maybe hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works. You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines. And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting ships. It's: What are our capabilities?”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Third presidential debate http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/presidential-debate-full-transcript/story?id=17538888, Lynn University, Boca Raton, Florida, , quoted in * 2012-10-23
Horses, bayonets, and battleships
Prachi
Gupta
Salon
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/23/horses_bayonets_and_battleships/
2012-10-24
2012

Vladimir Mayakovsky photo

“Love's ship has foundered on the rocks of life.
We're quits: stupid to draw up a list
of mutual sorrows, hurts and pains.”

Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930) Russian and Soviet poet, playwright, artist and stage and film actor

Untitled last poem found after his death; translation from Martin Seymour-Smith Guide to Modern World Literature (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975) vol. 4, p. 235

David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty photo

“There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today.”

David Beatty, 1st Earl Beatty (1871–1936) Royal Navy officer

On the British battlecruiser losses in the early portion of the Battle of Jutland (1916), as quoted in The Rules of the Game : Jutland and British Naval Command (2005) by Andrew Gordon, p. 120

Joseph Conrad photo
Omar Bradley photo

“It is time that we steered by the stars, not by the lights of each passing ship.”

Omar Bradley (1893–1981) United States Army field commander during World War II

Statement (31 May 1948), quoted in An Inconvenient Truth : The Planetary Emergency Of Global Warming And What We Can Do About It (2006) by Al Gore

Chester W. Nimitz photo
Otto Neurath photo

“We are like sailors who on the open sea must reconstruct their ship but are never able to start afresh from the bottom. Where a beam is taken away a new one must at once be put there, and for this the rest of the ship is used as support. In this way, by using the old beams and driftwood the ship can be shaped entirely anew, but only by gradual reconstruction.”

Otto Neurath (1882–1945) austrian economist, philosopher and sociologist

Otto Neurath (1921), "Spengler's Description of the World," as cited in: Nancy Cartwright et al. Otto Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 28 Apr. 2008 p. 191
1920s

Heinrich Himmler photo

“In the brief monthly reports of the Security Police, I only want figures on how many Jews have been shipped off and how many are currently left.”

Heinrich Himmler (1900–1945) Nazi officer, Commander of the SS

To Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Quoted in "Hitler and the Final Solution" - Page 137 - by Gerald Fleming - History - 1987
Undated

Karl Dönitz photo

“No attempt of any kind must be made at rescuing members of ships sunk, and this includes picking up persons in the water and putting them in lifeboats, righting capsized lifeboats, and handing over food and water. Rescue runs counter to the most primitive demands of warfare for the destruction of enemy ships and crews. Be hard, remember that the enemy has no regard for women and children when he bombs German cities.”

Karl Dönitz (1891–1980) President of Germany; admiral in command of German submarine forces during World War II

Orders issued on September 17, 1942, after an American Airplane bombed a U-boat carrying survivors. Quoted in "The Trial of the Germans" - Page 406 - by Eugene Davidson - History - 1997.

Benedict Arnold photo

“We have but very indifferent men in general. Great part of those who ship for seamen know very little of the matter.”

Benedict Arnold (1741–1801) Continental and later British Army general during the American Revolutionary War

Letter to General Gates (7 September 1776), in Battle of Valcour on Lake Champlain, October 11th, 1776 by Peter Sailly Palmer(1876) p. 5

Ronald Reagan photo
Edvard Munch photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Ovid photo

“Your right arm is useful in the battle; but when it comes to thinking you need my guidance. You have force without intelligence; while mine is the care for to-morrow. You are a good fighter; but is I who help Atrides select the time of fighting. Your value is in your body only; mine, in mind. And, as much as he who directs the ship surpasses him who only rows it, as much as the general exceeds the common soldier, so much greater am I than you. For in these bodies of ours the heart is of more value than the hand; all our real living is in that.”
Tibi dextera bello utilis: ingenium est, quod eget moderamine nostro; tu vires sine mente geris, mihi cura futuri; tu pugnare potes, pugnandi tempora mecum eligit Atrides; tu tantum corpore prodes, nos animo; quantoque ratem qui temperat, anteit remigis officium, quanto dux milite maior, tantum ego te supero; nec non in corpore nostro pectora sunt potiora manu: vigor omnis in illis.

Book XIII, 361–369; translation by Frank Justus Miller https://archive.org/details/metamorphoseswit02oviduoft
Metamorphoses (Transformations)

H.P. Lovecraft photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
H.P. Lovecraft photo
Thucydides photo
Greta Thunberg photo
Augustus photo

“He could not even stand up to review his fleet when the ships were already at their fighting stations, but lay on his back and gazed up at the sky, never rising to show that he was alive until Marcus Agrippa had routed the enemy.”

Augustus (-63–14 BC) founder of Julio-Claudian dynasty and first emperor of the Roman Empire

Marcus Antonius, taunting Augustus for his conduct during the Sicilian war against Sextus Pompey in 36 BC; in Suetonius, Divus Augustus, paragraph 16. Translation: Robert Graves, 1957.

Cassandra Clare photo

“I really was sick. I swear. I almost died back there on the ship, you know.”

"I know. Every time you almost die, I almost die myself."
Clary and Jace, pg.449
The Mortal Instruments, City of Ashes (2008)

Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Voltaire photo

“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)

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry photo
Plato photo
Ambrose Bierce photo

“Friendship: A ship big enough for two in fair weather, but only one in foul.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

Rick Riordan photo
Ayn Rand photo
Cassandra Clare photo
John Calvin photo
Pablo Neruda photo
John Paul Jones photo

“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

Herman Melville photo

“Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.”

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

Source: Moby-Dick or, The Whale

Sebastian Junger photo

“How do men act on a sinking ship? Do they hold each other? Do they pass around the whisky? Do they cry?”

Sebastian Junger (1962) American author, journalist and documentarian

Source: The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea

Aristophanés photo

“It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war.”

Birds (414 BC)
Context: Epops: You're mistaken: men of sense often learn from their enemies. Prudence is the best safeguard. This principle cannot be learned from a friend, but an enemy extorts it immediately. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war. And this lesson saves their children, their homes, and their properties.
Chorus [leader]: It appears then that it will be better for us to hear what they have to say first; for one may learn something at times even from one's enemies.
(tr. Anon. 1812 rev. in Ramage 1864, p. 45 http://books.google.com/books?id=AoUCAAAAQAAJ&pg;=PA45)