Ashore it’s wine, women, and song; aboard it’s rum, bum, and concertina.
—British naval saying, c. 1800Quotes
Seaward ho! Hang the treasure! It’s the glory of the sea that has turned my head.
—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883The sea receives us in a proper way only when we are without clothes.
—Pliny the Elder, 77Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.
—Publilius Syrus, c. 30 BCYou never enjoy the world aright, till the sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars.
—Thomas Traherne, c. 1670The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.
—James Joyce, 1922We are as near to heaven by sea as by land!
—Humphrey Gilbert, 1583Without a decisive naval force, we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.
—George Washington, 1781I am ill every time it blows hard, and nothing but my enthusiastic love for the profession keeps me one hour at sea.
—Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1804As 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.
—H.M. Tomlinson, 1912I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.
—Anaïs Nin, 1950The wonderful sea charmed me from the first.
—Joshua Slocum, 1900All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full.
—Book of Ecclesiastes, c. 250 BC