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.

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

Seafarers go to sleep in the evening not knowing whether they will find themselves at the bottom of the sea the next morning.

The sea receives us in a proper way only when we are without clothes.

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

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

You 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.

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.

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.

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.

The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.