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.

Many, 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.

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.

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

He who commands the sea has command of everything.

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

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.

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

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.

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

And to our age’s drowsy blood / Still shouts the inspiring sea.

I am ill every time it blows hard, and nothing but my enthusiastic love for the profession keeps me one hour at sea.

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.