Take back your golden fiddles, and we’ll beat to open sea.

The sea hath fish for every man.

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

Ashore it’s wine, women, and song; aboard it’s rum, bum, and concertina.

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.

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

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

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.

The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet.

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.

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

He that commands the sea is at great liberty and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.

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.