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.

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 sea hath no king but God alone.

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.

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

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

The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.

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

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

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

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

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.

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