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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.

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

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 snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea.

The sole business of a seaman onshore who has to go to sea again is to take as much pleasure as he can.

He who commands the sea has command of everything.

It 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.