Seaward ho! Hang the treasure! It’s the glory of the sea that has turned my head.

I’ve been bathing in the poem / Of star-infused and milky sea / Devouring the azure greens.

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

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.

Ocean. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man—who has no gills.

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.

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.

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 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.

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

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

In all the ancient states and empires, those who had the shipping, had the wealth.