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

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

  Robin Lee Graham

  Sea, Sailing, Nautical

  156 Copy quote

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

  H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

  Inspirational, Life, Positive

  436 Copy quote

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

  Walt Whitman

  Inspirational, Sad, Death

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

  25 Copy quote

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• 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)

  77 Copy quote

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

  Francis Drake

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  85 Copy quote

• 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

  8 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

  158 Copy quote

• 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

  48 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

  34 Copy quote

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

  Joseph Conrad

  Inspirational, Funny, Wise

  28 Copy quote

• It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage.

  George William Curtis

  Journey, Smooth Sailing, Achievement

  74 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

  28 Copy quote

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• It's out there at sea that you are really yourself.

  Vito Dumas

  Sea, Sailing, Nautical

  John Guzzwell, Vito Dumas, Joshua Slocum (1976). “Great voyages in small boats: solo circumnavigations”, John De Graff

  53 Copy quote

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• If a man is to be obsessed by something, I suppose a boat is as good as anything, perhaps a bit better than most.

  E. B. White

  Men, Sailing, Nautical

  7 Copy quote

• There are only two colors to paint a boat, black or white, and only a fool would paint a boat black.

  Nathanael Greene Herreshoff

  Color, Two, White

  14 Copy quote

• When I forget how talented God is, I look to the sea.

  Whoopi Goldberg

  Sea, Sailing, Nautical

  30 Copy quote

• I was born in the breezes, and I had studied the sea as perhaps few men have studied it, neglecting all else.

  Joshua Slocum

  Men, Sea Breeze, Sailing

  Joshua Slocum (2009). “The Annotated Sailing Alone Around the World”, p.2, Sheridan House, Inc.

  11 Copy quote

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• I can remain on shore, paralyzed with fear,
  or I can raise my sails and dip and soar in the breeze.

  Richard Bode

  Sailing, Nautical, Dip

  9 Copy quote

• Sailing a boat calls for quick action, a blending of feeling with the wind and water as well as with the very heart and soul of the boat itself. Sailing teaches alertness and courage, and gives in return a joyousness and peace that but few sports afford.

  George Matthew Adams

  Sports, Heart, Wind

  13 Copy quote

• To reach a port, we must sail - sail, not tie at anchor - sail, not drift.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Inspirational, Life, Anchors

  Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1941). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1938, Volume 7”, p.248, Best Books on

  15 Copy quote

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• Wind is to us what money is to life on shore.

  Sterling Hayden

  Inspirational, Funny, Wind

  Sterling Hayden (2015). “Wanderer”, p.80, Pickle Partners Publishing

  48 Copy quote

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• There is nothing like lying flat on your back on the deck, alone except for the helmsman aft at the wheel, silence except for the lapping of the sea against the side of the ship. At that time you can be equal to Ulysses and brother to him.

  Errol Flynn

  Brother, Lying, Sea

  48 Copy quote

• Only the guy who isn't rowing has time to rock the boat.

  Jean-Paul Sartre

  Rocks, Guy, Sailing

  Jean-Paul Sartre (2012). “Essays in Aesthetics”, p.12, Open Road Media

  168 Copy quote

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• later down the road of life, i made the discovery that salt water was also good for the mental abrasions one inevitably acquires on land.

  Jimmy Buffett

  Discovery, Land, Water

  155 Copy quote