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

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.

The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

A fair complexion is unbecoming to a sailor: he ought to be swarthy from the waters of the sea and the rays of the sun.

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

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

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.

He who travels by sea is nothing but a worm on a piece of wood, a trifle in the midst of a powerful creation. The waters play about with him at will, and no one but God can help him.