All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full.
—Book of Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BCQuotes
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.
—William Bradford, 1630I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.
—Anaïs Nin, 1950The 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.
—Samuel Purchas, 1613Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so shall you come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1838Without a decisive naval force, we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.
—George Washington, 1781Ashore it’s wine, women, and song; aboard it’s rum, bum, and concertina.
—British naval saying, c. 1800Seaward ho! Hang the treasure! It’s the glory of the sea that has turned my head.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883We 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.
—John F. Kennedy, 1962He that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.
—Francis Bacon, c. 1600I am ill every time it blows hard, and nothing but my enthusiastic love for the profession keeps me one hour at sea.
—Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1804Take back your golden fiddles, and we’ll beat to open sea.
—Rudyard Kipling, 1892We are as near to heaven by sea as by land!
—Humphrey Gilbert, 1583