Boats And Sailing Quotes

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  The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

  William Arthur Ward

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Leadership

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

  Robin Lee Graham

  Sea, Sailing, Nautical

  152 Copy quote

• O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done.

  Walt Whitman

  Inspirational, Sad, Death

  "O Captain! My Captain!" l. 1 (1871)

  24 Copy quote

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• When you can’t change the direction of the wind — adjust your sails

  H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

  427 Copy quote

• There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.

  Kenneth Grahame

  Witty, Wind, Sailing

  TheWind in theWillows ch. 1 (1908)

  73 Copy quote

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• 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.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Play, Sailing, Pulse

  Henry David Thoreau (1873). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.381

  7 Copy quote

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• I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth, a nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea.

  Bernard Moitessier

  Beautiful, Cheating, Peace

  157 Copy quote

• It isn't that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.

  Francis Drake

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  82 Copy quote

• The sea is the same as it has been since before men ever went on it in boats.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Inspirational, Funny, Men

  Ernest Hemingway (2014). “The Hemingway Collection”, p.1106, Simon and Schuster

  26 Copy quote

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• Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

  Samuel Johnson

  Travel, Jail, Sailing

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 16 Mar. 1759)

  13 Copy quote

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• Land was created to provide a place for boats to visit.

  Brooks Atkinson

  Sea, Land, Pirate

  86 Copy quote

• Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

  H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "P.S. I Love You: When Mom Wrote, She Always Saved the Best for Last". Book by H. Jackson Brown, Jr., March 1, 1991.

  150 Copy quote

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• The desire to build a house is the tired wish of a man content thenceforward with a single anchorage. The desire to build a boat is the desire of youth, unwilling yet to accept the idea of a final resting place.

  Arthur Ransome

  Tired, Men, Ideas

  Arthur Ransome, Brian Hammett (2002). “Racundra's third cruise”, Wiley

  33 Copy quote

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• Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

  Herman Melville

  Inspirational, Funny, Years

  Herman Melville (2008). “Moby-Dick”, p.1, Velvet Element Books

  16 Copy quote

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• The days pass happily with me wherever my ship sails.

  Joshua Slocum

  Inspirational, Funny, Sea

  30 Copy quote

• There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.

  Joseph Conrad

  Life, Ocean, Army

  Joseph Conrad (1905). “Lord Jim”, p.7, McClure, Phillips & Company

  65 Copy quote

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

  John Rousmaniere

  Goal, Sailing, Nautical

  John Rousmaniere (1988). “The sailing lifestyle: a guide to sailing and crusing for pleasure”, Fireside

  47 Copy quote

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• The sea finds out everything you did wrong.

  Francis Stokes

  Sea, Sailing, Nautical

  23 Copy quote

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

  Edward Gibbon

  Inspirational, Life, Wisdom

  "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". Volume 6,

  99 Copy quote

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• I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky; and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.

  John Masefield

  Lonely, Stars, Sea

  "Sea Fever" l. 1 (1902).

  33 Copy quote

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• All I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by.

  John Masefield

  Stars, Sea, Sailing

  John Masefield, “Sea Fever”

  21 Copy quote

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• Whenever your preparations for the sea are poor; the sea worms its way in and finds the problems.

  Francis Stokes

  Sea, Sailing, Preparation

  44 Copy quote

• Off Cape Horn there are but two kinds of weather, neither one of them a pleasant kind.

  John Masefield

  Weather, Two, Sailing

  "A Tarpaulin Muster".

  7 Copy quote

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• For one thing, I was no longer alone; a man is never alone with the wind-and the boat made three.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Men, Wind, Sailing

  Hilaire Belloc (1996). “Hills and the Sea”, p.126, Northwestern University Press

  31 Copy quote

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

  Donald Hamilton

  Long, Sailing, Nautical

  Donald Hamilton (1980). “Cruises with Kathleen”, David McKay Company

  44 Copy quote

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