Nautical Quotations

If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.

To reach a port we must set sail

The sooner we learn to be jointly responsible, the easier the sailing will be.

Thats what a ship is, you know. Its not a keel and a hull and a deck and sails. Thats what a ship needs. But what a ship is. What the Black Pearl really is . . . is freedom.

Spirits rise as the sails fill... Gone is the sea's glassy surface, and with it the terrible glare. Close the hatches and ports! We're sailing again!

The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and impatient when least effective.

The humblest craft that floats makes its appeal to a seaman by the faithfulness of her life.

The days pass happily with me wherever my ship sails.

Headwinds are sore vexations and the more passengers the sorer.

The ocean is an object of no small terror.