Nautical Quotes

At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much.

It's out there at sea that you are really yourself.

The only way to get a good crew is to marry one.

A small craft in an ocean is, or should be, a benevolent dictatorship.

The goal is not to sail the boat, but rather to help the boat sail herself.

Being hove to in a long gale is the most boring way of being terrified I know.

I don't know who named them swells. There's nothing swell about them. They should have named them awfuls.

The cabin of a small yacht is truly a wonderful thing; not only will it shelter you from a tempest, but from the other troubles in life, it is a safe retreat.

There never was a great man yet who spent all his life inland.

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.

When I forget how talented God is, I look to the sea.

To the question, "When were your spirits at the lowest ebb?" the obvious answer seemed to be, "When the gin gave out."

Men in a ship are always looking up, and men ashore are usually looking down.

The sea finds out everything you did wrong.

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!

There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not.

I want a boat that drinks 6, eats 4, and sleeps 2.

He who lets the sea lull him into a sense of security is in very grave danger.

To reach a port we must set sail

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

For will anyone dare to tell me that business is more entertaining than fooling among boats? He must have never seen a boat, or never seen an office, who says so.

Only fools and passengers drink at sea.

The ocean is an object of no small terror.

I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear, or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze.

Headwinds are sore vexations and the more passengers the sorer.

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.

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

It is the weather, not work, that wears out sails.

No literature is richer than that of the sea. No story is more enthralling, no tradition is more secure.

When you're on a boat, 15 nautical miles off the coast and you're with a bunch of fishermen, they don't give two shits about who you are.