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.

He who commands the sea has command of everything.

The sea yields action to the body, meditation to the mind, the world to the world, all parts thereof to each part, by this art of arts—navigation.

All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full.

I am ill every time it blows hard, and nothing but my enthusiastic love for the profession keeps me one hour at sea.

It is He who has subdued the ocean so that you may eat of its fresh fish and bring up from its depth ornaments to wear. Behold the ships plowing their course through it. All this, that you may seek His bounty and render thanks.

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

The sole business of a seaman onshore who has to go to sea again is to take as much pleasure as he can.

The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.

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.

Being thus arrived in good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stale earth, their proper element.

Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide, wide sea!