Providence protects damn fools, and sailors.

-Anon

The sea is noble in her impartiality. She harbors, feeds, maims and drowns with disregard for age or race or creed; the sole bias she can be accused of is that she won't tolerate a fool.

-Ferenc Mate'

Motion is as intrinsic to oceans as wetness. Perpetual motion is the fundamental difference between life on land at life at sea.

-Dallas Murphy

It is best for the mariner, if he can manage it, not to think too deeply during times of stress.

-Ralph Stock

No matter how important a man at sea may consider himself, unless he is fundamentally worthy the sea will some day find him out.

-Felix Riesenberg

The wide loneliness of a great ocean breeds a humility that is good for the soul.

-E.A. Pye

I toast the man, whoever he be, that first shaped paddle from the tree.

-Anon

We speak of a ships "behavior" as if she were alive. Wood and iron and hemp - and yet, somehow, a soul.

-Arthur Sturges Hildebrand

What is more pleasant than a friendly little yacht, a long stretch of smooth water, a gentle breeze, the stars?

-William Atkin

If someone drops on the covering board and it has a 50/50 chance of bouncing in or out, 98.5% of the time it will bounce out.

-Anon

Water can float a ship, and sink it even more easily.

-Anon

Nothing can bail a boat faster than a panicked sailor with a bucket.

-Anon

One hand for yourself; one hand for the ship.

-Anon

There is but a mere plank or two between the sailor and eternity.

-Edward Gibbon

The only purpose in the life of your boats keel is to go to the bottom. If you give it a chance, it will do its job.

-Gregory S. Barsh, Esq.

I beg you to consider our destiny!

-William F. Buckley, Jr., (On coming on deck to see his helmsman bearing down on a rock pile.)

The call of the open water is universal.

-W.E Warrington

The sea is the matrix of creation, and we have the memory of it in our blood.

-Hilaire Belloc

The seas are the heart's blood of the earth.

-Henry Beston

But the Sea is tameless: as it was in the beginning, it is now, and shall ever be.

-Norman Duncan

The poetry of the sea in written on shore.

-Laura Alexandrine Smith

The sea is my ground and origin; I have no other point of departure.

-Lincoln Colcord

The sea provides visions, darkness, revelations.

-Hilaire Belloe

When the sea fills your every thought awake and asleep, you can no more resist than the tides can the moon.

-Ferenc Mate'

Hell isn't fire. It's the total absence of water.

-Sperry Topsider print advertisement

The sea's most powerful spell is romance.

-H.W. Tilman

A woman's heart is a deep ocean of secrets.

-Anon

Never trust her at any time when the calm sea shows her false alluring smile.

-Lucretius

The marriage of wind and sails will never end in divorce.

-Anon

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

-Herman Melville

Sailors ought never go to church. They should go to Hell, where it is much more comfortable.

-H.G. Wells

Anyone can handle the helm when the sea is calm.

-Anon

Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.

-August Hare

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should a life rest on a single hope.

-Epictetus

Like the skipper of a grounded ship, one must sometimes go forward by going back.

-John Barth

He that will learn to pray; let him go to sea.

-George Herbert

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

-Robin Lee Graham

You get close in a boat.

-George Putz

The ideal crew member is a rare creature indeed.

-William Snaith

What am I? I'm a barnacle the dingy of life!

-Popeye

Any damn fool can circumnavigate the world sober. It takes a really good sailor to do it drunk.

-Francis Chichester

The sea will sooth your bitterness and assuage your grief. Go to sea!

-William McFee

The idea of escaping the problems of life by sailing away is a fable.

-Tristan Jones

He who goes to sea for pleasure would go to Hell for a pastime.

-Samuel Johnson

Love the sea? I dote upon it - from the beach.

-Douglas Jerrold

Were it not for sea-sickness, the whole world would be sailors.

-Charles Darwin

The charm of fishing is that, it is the pursuit of what is elusive, but attainable; a perpetual series of occasions for hope. -Quote on a wall of a ladies clothing store in Islamorada, FL.