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.

I’ve been bathing in the poem / Of star-infused and milky sea / Devouring the azure greens.

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.

Ocean. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man—who has no gills.

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.

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

The sea hath no king but God alone.

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

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

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.

A fair complexion is unbecoming to a sailor: he ought to be swarthy from the waters of the sea and the rays of the sun.

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.

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