1.
You do not ask a tame seagull why it needs to disappear from time to time toward the open sea. It goes, that's all.
Bernard Moitessier
You do not inquire why a docile seagull needs to occasionally fly off towards the ocean. It simply flies away, no explanation necessary.
2.
At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much.
Robin Lee Graham
I discovered in the ocean how slight a person's necessities are, not their abundance.
3.
Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat.
Jean-Paul Sartre
Only the one who is still has time to stir up trouble.
4.
Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for awhile. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way.
David Whyte
5.
The man who has experienced shipwreck shudders even at a calm sea.
Ovid
6.
Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.
David Lee Roth
7.
There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.
Kenneth Grahame
8.
There are ships sailing to many ports, but not a single one goes where life is not painful.
Fernando Pessoa
9.
A sailing ship is no democracy; you don't caucus a crew as to where you'll go anymore than you inquire when they'd like to shorten sail.
Sterling Hayden
10.
To desire and strive to be of some service to the world, to aim at doing something which shall really increase the happiness and welfare and virtue of mankind - this is a choice which is possible for all of us; and surely it is a good haven to sail for.
Henry Van Dyke
11.
The best that science can devise and that naval organization can provide must be regarded only as an aid, and never as a substitute for good seamanship.
Chester W. Nimitz
13.
He who rides the sea of the Nile must have sails woven of patience.
William Golding
14.
People say that life is a cesspool of darkness and dispair. Well we of Van Halen are sailing through it in a yacht!
David Lee Roth
15.
Waves are not measured in feet or inches, they are measured in increments of fear.
Buzzy Trent
16.
It's out there at sea that you are really yourself.
Vito Dumas
17.
There is little man has made that approaches anything in nature, but a sailing ship does. There is not much man has made that calls to all the best in him, but a sailing ship does.
Alan Villiers
18.
The only way to get a good crew is to marry one.
Eric Hiscock
19.
A small craft in an ocean is, or should be, a benevolent dictatorship.
Tristan Jones
20.
The goal is not to sail the boat, but rather to help the boat sail herself.
John Rousmaniere
21.
I'll do business with anyone, but I'll only go sailing with gentlemen.
J. P. Morgan
22.
There is but a plank between a sailor and eternity.
Thomas Gibbons
23.
Layering and changeability: this is the key, the combination that is worked into most of my buildings. Occupying one of these buildings is like sailing a yacht; you modify and manipulate its form and skin according to seasonal conditions and natural elements, and work with these to maximize the performance of the building.
Glenn Murcutt
24.
I don't know who named them swells. There's nothing swell about them. They should have named them awfuls.
Hugo Vihlen
25.
Bad cooking is responsible for more trouble at sea than all other things put together.
Thomas Fleming Day
26.
Whenever your preparations for the sea are poor; the sea worms its way in and finds the problems.
Francis Stokes
27.
Being hove to in a long gale is the most boring way of being terrified I know.
Donald Hamilton
29.
Let the business of the world take care of itself... My business is to get the world saved; if this involves the standing still of the looms and the shutting up of the factories, and the staying of the sailing of the ships, let them all stand still. When we have got everybody converted they can go on again, and we shall be able to keep things going then by working half time and have the rest to spend in loving one another and worshipping God.
William Booth
30.
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.
Lewis Francis Herreshoff
31.
I’m not like most designers, who have to set sail on an exotic getaway to get inspired. Most of the time, it’s on my walk to work, or sitting in the subway and seeing something random or out of context.
Alexander Wang
32.
For one thing, I was no longer alone; a man is never alone with the wind-and the boat made three.
Hilaire Belloc
33.
Money can't buy you happiness but it can pay for the plastic surgery.
Joan Rivers
34.
There never was a great man yet who spent all his life inland.
Herman Melville
37.
I know enough about Satan to realize that he will have all his weapons ready for determined opposition. He would be a missionary simpleton who expected plain sailing in any work of God.
James O. Fraser
38.
Not so much two ships passing in the night as two ships sailing together for a time but always bound for different ports.
P. D. James
39.
Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.
Mark Twain
40.
Every year I spend one month just sailing, but I still work when Im on the boat. You never separate work from leisure. A boat is like a magic world, like a little island.
Renzo Piano
41.
To the question, "When were your spirits at the lowest ebb?" the obvious answer seemed to be, "When the gin gave out."
Francis Chichester
42.
Men in a ship are always looking up, and men ashore are usually looking down.
John Masefield
44.
You mustn't miss the moment. There's only one first sailing into Rio harbor.
Bette Davis
45.
When it comes to politics, one has to do as one at sea with a sailing ship, reach one's course having regard to prevailing winds.
William Lyon Mackenzie King
46.
I challenge you to a duel!” screamed the cat, sailing over their heads on the swinging chandelier.
Mikhail Bulgakov
47.
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!
Jim Moore
48.
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.
Kenneth Grahame
49.
Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness.
John Calvin
50.
All I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by.
John Masefield