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.

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.

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.

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way.

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

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.

The wonderful sea charmed me from the first.

The sea hath fish for every man.

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

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

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.

The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.

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