The life of a sailor is very unhealthy.

The Mediterranean has the colors of a mackerel, changeable I mean. You don’t always know if it is green or violet—you can’t even say it’s blue, because the next moment the changing light has taken on a tinge of pink or gray.

The sea hath fish for every man.

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.

The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet.

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

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.

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

We are as near to heaven by sea as by land!

Seafarers go to sleep in the evening not knowing whether they will find themselves at the bottom of the sea the next morning.

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

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.

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