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, 1630Quotes
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.
—Hans Christian Andersen, 1837The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
—Edward Gibbon, 1788We are as near to heaven by sea as by land!
—Humphrey Gilbert, 1583It is He who has subdued the ocean so that you may eat of its fresh fish and bring up from its depth ornaments to wear. Behold the ships plowing their course through it. All this, that you may seek His bounty and render thanks.
—The Qur’an, c. 625What will not attract a man’s stare at sea?—a gull, a turtle, a flying fish!
—Richard Burton, 1883Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 30 BCOcean. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man—who has no gills.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.
—Vladimir Nabokov, 1941A 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 BCNever trust her at any time when the calm sea shows her false alluring smile.
—Lucretius, c. 60 BCBe 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.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1838Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide, wide sea!
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798