The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.

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

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.

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.

The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him very fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of much nonsense of his wigwam.

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

Never trust her at any time when the calm sea shows her false alluring smile.

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way.

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.

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.

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.

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

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