I never even saw the use of the sea. Many a sad heart has it caused, and many a sick stomach has it occasioned! The boldest sailor climbs on board with a heavy soul and leaps on land with a light spirit.

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 whence we came.

Seamen are the nearest to death and the furthest from God.

Without a decisive naval force, we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.

The bathing was so delightful this morning, and Molly so pressing with me to enjoy myself, that I believe I stayed in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful another time, and shall not bathe tomorrow as I had before intended.

The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his wigwam.

The wonderful sea charmed me from the first.

As to the sea itself, love it you cannot. Why should you? I will never believe again the sea was ever loved by anyone whose life was married to it. It is the creation of omnipotence, which is not of humankind and understandable, and so the springs of its behavior are hidden.

What will not attract a man’s stare at sea?—a gull, a turtle, a flying fish!

But look, our seas are what we make of them, full of fish or not, opaque or transparent, red or black, high or smooth, narrow or bankless—and we are ourselves sea, sand, coral, seaweed, beaches, tides, swimmers, children, waves.

I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.

The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.