Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide, wide sea!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798Quotes
Being thus arrived in good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stale earth, their proper element.
—William Bradford, 1630The 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.
—Samuel Purchas, 1613The sea receives us in a proper way only when we are without clothes.
—Pliny the Elder, 77And to our age’s drowsy blood / Still shouts the inspiring sea.
—James Russell Lowell, 1848Ocean. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man—who has no gills.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 30 BCThe snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.
—James Joyce, 1922A fair complexion is unbecoming to a sailor: he ought to be swarthy from the waters of the sea and the rays of the sun.
—Ovid, c. 1 BCBut 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.
—Hélène Cixous, 1976I 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.
—Benjamin Disraeli, 1827In all the ancient states and empires, those who had the shipping, had the wealth.
—William Petty, 1690Many, 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.
—Hans Christian Andersen, 1837