Browse through our collection of quotes tagged with Sailing.
One ship sails east and another sails west With the self-same winds that blow.Tis the set of the sail and not the galeWhich determines the way they go.As the winds of the sea are the ways of fateAs we voyage along through life,Tis the act of the soul that determines the goal,And not the calm or the strife.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
I long for the solitude of a sunset at sea,and the chill of the breezecoming in with the eve.For the motion of my boat,as she swings on her rode,and the beauty of the stars,in the evenings last glow.
R.C. Gibbons, I Long
The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head
Herman Melville, Billy Budd
Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind the gates of Hercules;Before him not the ghost of shores,Before him only shorless seas.The good Mate said, Now we must pray,For lo! the very stars are gone.Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!My men grow mutinous day by day;My men grow ghastly wan and weak!The stout Mate thought of home; a sprayOf salt wavewashed his swarthy cheek.What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,If we sight naught but seas at dawn?Why, you shall say at break of day,'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the Mate;This mad sea shows its teeth tonight.He curls his lip, he lies in wait,With lifted teeth, as if to bite!Brave Admiral, say but one good word;What shall we do when hope is gone?The words leapt like a leaping sword;Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!Then, pale and worn, he kept his deckAnd peered through darkness. Ah! that nightOf all dark nights! And then a speck --A light! A light! A light! A light!It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.He gained a world; he gave that worldIts greatest lesson: On! sail on!based on the courageous determination of Christopher Columbus
Joaquin Miller
There is a rule in sailing where the more maneuverable ship should give way to the less maneuverable craft. I think this is sometimes a good rule to follow in human relationships as well.
Joyce Brothers, In Pearls of Wis
How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof! In such places standing alone on the mountaintop it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make---leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents or piled stone---we all dwell in a house of one room---the world with a firmament for its roof---and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track.
John Muir, John of the Mountains
But although we have noticed the ark as being the first ship, we cannot with propriety place it in the front of the history of navigation. After the flood the ark seems to have been soon forgotten, or at least imperfectly remembered, and men reverted to their little canoes and clumsy boats, which sufficed for all their limited wants. It was not until about a thousand years later in the world
R. M. [Robert Michael] Ballantyn
Oh! Pilot! 'tis a fearful night,There's danger on the deep,I'll come and pace the deck with thee,I do not dare to sleep.Go down, the sailor cried, go down,This is no place for thee;Fear not! but trust in Providence,Wherever thou mayst be.Ah! Pilot, dangers often metWe all are apt to slight,And thou hast known these raging wavesBut to subdue their might.It is not apathy, he cried,That gives this strength to me,Fear not but trust in Providence,Wherever thou mayst be.On such a night the sea engulphedMy father's lifeless form;My only brother's boat went downIn just so wild a storm;And such, perhaps, may be my fate,But still I say to thee,Fear not but trust in Providence,Wherever thou mayst be.
Thomas Haynes Bayly, The Pilot
A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.
Grace Murray Hopper
O it's I that am the captain of a tidy little ship,Of a ship that goes a sailing on the pond;And my ship it keeps a-turning all around and all about;But when I'm a little older, I shall find the secret outHow to send my vessel sailing on beyond.For I mean to grow a little as the dolly at the helm,And the dolly I intend to come alive;And with him beside to help me, it's a-sailing I shall go,It's a-sailing on the water, when the jolly breezes blowAnd the vessel goes a dive-dive-dive.O it's then you'll see me sailing through the rushes and the reeds,And you'll hear the water singing at the prow;For beside the dolly sailor, I'm to voyage and explore,To land upon the island where no dolly was before,And to fire the penny cannon in the bow.
Robert Louis Stevenson, My Ship
