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.

Why is a ship under sail more poetical than a hog in a high wind? The hog is all nature, the ship is all art.

He that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.

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

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.

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

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 wonderful sea charmed me from the first.

Of all objects that I have ever seen, there is none which affects my imagination so much as the sea or ocean. A troubled ocean, to a man who sails upon it, is, I think, the biggest object that he can see in motion, and consequently gives his imagination one of the highest kinds of pleasure that can arise from greatness.

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

You never enjoy the world aright, till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars.

The sea receives us in a proper way only when we are without clothes.

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.