Many, many steeples would have to be stacked one on top of another to reach from the bottom to the surface of the sea. It is down there that the sea folk live.

The bathing was so delightful this morning, and Molly so pressing with me to enjoy myself, that I believe I stayed in rather too long, as since the middle of the day I have felt unreasonably tired. I shall be more careful another time, and shall not bathe tomorrow as I had before intended.

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

Never trust her at any time when the calm sea shows her false alluring smile.

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

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

Be 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.

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

The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.

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.

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.

He who commands the sea has command of everything.

He who travels by sea is nothing but a worm on a piece of wood, a trifle in the midst of a powerful creation. The waters play about with him at will, and no one but God can help him.