Inspiring and Useful Sailing Quotes

A placeholder for me to organize inspiring and useful sailing quotes...

 

Cruising

 “Go small, go simple, go now.” 

~ Larry Pardey

 

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

~ Robin Lee Graham

 

Life

“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”

~ Willa Cather

 

“The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.”

~ Vincent Van Gogh 

 

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

~ Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

 

"Those who see sailing as an escape from reality have got their understanding of both sailing and reality completely backwards."

~ Robert Pirsig (author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance), in a 1977 Esquire magazine article. 

“Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.”

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd U.S. President 

 

 “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. Catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

~ Mark Twain 

“Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.”

~ Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

 

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

~ William Arthur Ward

 

"One ship drives east and another west with the self-same winds that blow.'Tis the set of the sails and not the gales which decides the way to go. Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate as we wander along through life 'Tis the set of the soul that decides the goal and not the calm or strife." 

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Mottoes

"Non sibi sed patriae" (Not self but country)

~ unofficial motto of the U.S. Navy  

 

 
Navigation

 
‘If someone switches the satellites off, you had better know where you are – log your position at regular intervals.’
~ Sir Robin Knox-Johnston

 

Reefing

 If you have to ask "should we reef" - it is probably too late. 

“Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.”

 ~ Joseph Conrad 

 

Oceans

“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

~ Jacques Yves Cousteau 

 

“If there’s a heaven for me, I’m sure it has a beach attached to it.” 

~ Jimmy Buffett

  

Seafaring

"They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea."

~  Sir Francis Bacon 

 

“A sailor is an artist whose medium is the wind.”

~ Webb Chiles

 

“It is not that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.”

~ Sir Francis Drake 

 

“A man is never lost at sea.” 

~ Ernest Hemingway

 

"There is something magical about the dance that occurs between the ocean and the sky - with the wind as your partner. Whether it is under a bright blazing sun, or a star-filled sky - the rhythm of the ocean, the surge of the vessel, the sound of the wind, and the splash of the waves. In all my wanderings and adventures, I have found no tonic stronger to restore my soul, replenish my spirit, and brighten my outlook on life."

~ Kelvin Meeks

“If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.”

~ Seneca 

“A ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.”

~ John A. Shedd

 

"Now…bring me that horizon.”

~ Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean

 

 “It’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that’s what a ship needs but what a ship is…what the Black Pearl really is…is freedom.” 

~ Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean