Pearls of Wisdom
Sailing Quotes
We’ve collected a quantum of beautiful rhymes and quotes on sailing and those inspired by the sea and seafaring.
The brave images of the Age of Sail (and pirates) haunt a boy’s fantasy, and when the boy grows, the same old story happens again and again.
I dare to say, no poet in history, feeling poetry in the heart, has ever missed out on mentioning the sea, seafaring, or sailing in his or her works.
Motivational Sailing Quotes
Philosophers often use sailing metaphors to express what they wish to express in their motivational quotes. Even though not every author was really into sailing, surely everyone got a small portion of a sailing fever. Mark Twain, however, was a real sailor, as real as only one can be once serving on a river.
If you do not know which port you are sailing to, any wind is favorable.
Seneca
Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.
William Shakespeare
We are not in the same boat, but we are in the same storm
Anonymous
An amateur built the Ark. Professionals built Titanic.
Anonymous
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor.
Mark Twain
DID YOU KNOW
Mark Twain is the pen-name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, and it translates into “mark two” (where “twain” is an ancient way of saying “two”). Before becoming a famous writer Mark Twain served on a riverboat in Mississippi, and they used a rope with marks on it and a weight on the bitter end to measure depth.
Such rope is called a “depth-sounding line.” It is present on the pleasure boats nowadays in some jurisdictions as an emergency device to measure depth. The second mark, mark two, meant 12 feet of depth, safe to pass.
Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
The cure for anything is saltwater: sweat, tears, or the sea.
Karen Blixen, a Danish writer, who wrote in Danish, but when she wrote in English her pen-name was Isak Dinesen
One doesn’t discover new lands without losing sight of the shore.
Christopher Columbus
Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.
Franklin Roosevelt
We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea shall ever rest. We must learn how to sail in high winds.
Aristotle Socrates Onassis, a cargo shipping tycoon
He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.
Leonardo da Vinci
Boats in the harbor are safe but that is not what they are meant for.
Zig Ziglar, an American motivational speaker. The quote is also attributed to Grace Hopper, a United States Navy Admiral, and a computer scientist.
DID YOU KNOW
Grace Hopper was messing with Mark I computers during the pioneering era of computer science, and she recorded many inventions in high-level programming and compilation.
One of the private transatlantic submarine communication cables, owned by Google, connecting the internet between Spain and America, is named after Grace Hopper.
There are three sorts of people. Those who are alive, those who are dead, and those who are at sea.
Anacharsis, 6th Century BC
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.
Antoine de Saint Exupery
Nae man can tether time or tide.
Robert Burns
Inspirational Sailing Quotes
Yet it is hard to draw a line between motivational and inspirational sailing quotes, but we are making a try. We cut them into a separate section, thinking: “motivation” is a general motivation, serving as a metaphor for an occasion unnecessarily related to the sailing affairs, but “inspirational” is to inspire for sailing, which is the very purpose of this website.
The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
Jacques Yves Cousteau
There is nothing absolutely nothing half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.
Kenneth Grahame, a Scottish writer
Sea fever is addictive more than gold, leaving her will drive you wild.
Fay Slimm, a British poetess, and a former health practitioner.
It is not that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.
Sir Francis Drake, an English privateer.
DID YOU KNOW
Sir Francis Drake was in command when the English Navy crushed the infamous Invincible Armada of Spain while the attempt to conquer England in 1588. Drake sunk 87 out of the 130 ships in one sitting, also using fire-ships, night attacks, and the advantages of the weather.
A year before, Drake sunk other 39 Spanish vessels during the Cadiz raid he conducted. The Spanish called him ‘El Draque,’ which is a direct translation of “the drake” (male duck) as a word into Spanish.
Whoever commands the sea, commands the trade, the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.
Sir Walter Raleigh, yet another English privateer of the Elizabethan era, who also was there under Drake’s command humiliating the Spanish Armada.
Was it storm? Our fathers faced it and a wilder never blew.
Rudyard Kipling
If Sailing was easy, it would be called Football.
Anonymous
Sailing Quotes on Seasickness
If it wasn’t for seasickness, all the world would be sailors.
Charles Darwin
Only two sailors never felt seasickness: one never left port, the other was a liar.
Anonymous
One of the best cures for pride is seasickness.
Josh Billings
Romantic Sailing Quotes
We would never make this post comprehensive without a separate set of romantic sailing quotes. It is something bigger than the wind and waves that attract people to rush into the sea – as it once was stressed in the following Ferdinand Magellan’s quote.
The sea is dangerous and its storms are terrible, but these obstacles have never been sufficient reason to remain ashore.
Ferdinand Magellan
At th’ twilight of my days I pledge my oath to sea: upon this ship I will remain throughout eternity.
Captain Cur, a pirate, and a poet.
We hardy skimmers of the sea are lucky in each sally. We, eighty strong, who row along the dreaded Pirate Galley.
Victor Hugo
My altars are the mountains and the ocean.
Lord Byron
Now bring me that horizon!
Jack Sparrow, a fictional pirate (“Pirates of the Caribbean”).
Learn the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers comprehend its mystery.
Henry W. Longfellow
Sailors’ Quotes About the Sea
Sailing — the fine art of slowly going nowhere at great expense while being cold, wet and miserable.
Irv Heller
In sea affairs, nothing is impossible, and nothing is improbable.
Admiral Horatio Nelson
Any damn fool can navigate sober. A really good sailor can do it drunk.
Sir Francis Chichester, a British businessman, an aviator, and a solo sailor.
DID YOU KNOW
The English naval tradition for all hands being constantly drunk, so to say, served well for 400 years and was canceled only in the 1970s when complicated mechanisms and weapons appeared, requiring sober attention.
His name was Admiral Edward Vernon, known by his nickname Old Grog as he was keen to wear grogram jackets. Vernon suggested two portions of Grog per day for every soul on a ship (a whole mug, not a shot). The drink was a mixture of water and rum, based on the Pirates of the Caribbean’s favorite drink – bumbo! The latter included water, rum, lime, sugar, and nutmeg.
A sailor is an artist whose medium is the wind.
Webb Chiles
The goal is not to sail the boat, but rather to help her to sail herself.
John Rousmaniere, an American writer, and author of 30 books on yachting and yachting history.
The only way to get a good crew is to marry one.
Eric Hiscock, a British sailor and an author of books, who, with his wife Susan, sailed all around, including circumnavigations, during several decades.
The art of the sailor is to leave nothing to chance.
Annie Van De Wiele
Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea.
Charles Cook
Boats, like whiskey, are all good.
Robert D. Culler
No object created by man is as satisfying to his body and soul as a proper sailing yacht.
Arthur Beiser
The lovely thing about cruising is that planning usually turns out to be of little use.
Dom Degnon
There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.
Joseph Conrad, a British-Polish writer, and a novelist.
Freedom and Love Sailing Quotes
To be successful at sea, we must keep things simple.
Pete Culler, a marine designer.
But to-day I leave the galley. Shall I curse her service then?
Rudyard Kipling
The servants of the sweep-head, but the masters of the sea!
Rudyard Kipling
The wind of the land is a hindered thing, but the ocean wind is free!
Lucy M. Montgomery, a Canadian author.
The sea is everything. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life on all sides
Jules Verne
When a man comes to like a sea life, he is no longer fit to live on land.
Samuel Johnson, often referred to as Dr. Johnson, an English writer.
A merry life and a short one shall be my motto.
Bartholomew Roberts, a pirate.
DID YOU KNOW
Bartholomew Roberts, also known as “Black Bart,” is considered the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy among “known pirates,” as soon as some pirates are wiped out of the historical record.
Black Bart took more than 420 prizes (captured ships) which is a great number. He died in battle at the age of 39 against federal forces, who intentionally were hunting especially for him.
He is also famous for establishing the proverbial Pirate Code.
I have only one eye. I really do not see the signal.
Admiral Horatio Nelson
DID YOU KNOW
During the battle of Copenhagen, on the 2nd of April 1801, Admiral Horatio Nelson disobeyed the direct order of his superior Admiral Hyde-Parker to retreat, went on doing what he was doing, and eventually won the engagement. The battle was supposed to be lost, but Nelson won it.
It is witnessed that Nelson said this phrase as an excuse to a first-mate officer, where the full quote was, “I have only one eye, I have the right to be blind sometimes,” then he looked through the glass with the blind eye, and added, “I really do not see the signal.”
The virtual for-fun organization CANOE, the Committee to Ascribe a Naval Origin to Everything, supports the idea that the idiom “to turn a blind eye” originates from this Nelson’s incident.
Often quoted: “I see no ships”, the same meaning.
Out there at sea that you are really yourself!
Vito Dumas