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

Alone, alone, all, all alone, / Alone on a wide, wide sea!

Tomorrow we take to the mighty sea.

The sea yields action to the body, meditation to the mind, the world to the world, all parts thereof to each part, by this art of arts—navigation.

The sea hath no king but God alone.

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

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

A fair complexion is unbecoming to a sailor: he ought to be swarthy from the waters of the sea and the rays of the sun.

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

The wonderful sea charmed me from the first.

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.

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.

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.