Sailors Quotes

I had a romance novel inside me, but I paid three sailors to beat it out of me with steel pipes.

~ Patton Oswalt

The strongest storms make the best sailors. The strongest games make the best players. Tougher challenges make the best leaders.

~ Israelmore Ayivor

There are no whores in Scaithe’s Ebb, or none that consider themselves as such, although there have always been many women who, if pressed, would describe themselves as much-married, with one husband on this ship here every six months, and another husband on that ship, back in port for a month or so every nine months.The mathematics of the thing have always kept most folk satisfied; and if ever it disappoints and a man returns to his wife while one of her other husbands is still in occupancy, why, then there is a fight—and the grog shops to comfort the loser. The sailors do not mind the arrangement, for they know that this way there will, at the least, be one person who, at the last, will notice when they do not come back from the sea, and will mourn their loss; and their wives content themselves with the certain knowledge that their husbands are also unfaithful, for there is no competing with the sea in a man’s affections, since she is both mother and mistress, and she will wash his corpse also, in time to come, wash it to coral and ivory and pearls.

~ Neil Gaiman

He penned a letter to the Company in London, a letter whose unfailing spirit would become legendary among the sailors of the East India Company. 'I cannot tell where you should looke for me.' he wrote, 'because I live at the devotion of the winds and seas.' (Written by/about Captain James Lancaster, on the ship Red Dragon, during a terrible storm, 1603)

~ Giles Milton

A fight is like the perfect storm. It is risky and dangerous. But, as the African proverb goes, Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. Fights are often learning opportunities—if we’re willing to dig deep enough past our own egos.

~ Lauren Klarfeld

You must be a light unto yourself.

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

The Bane...where coxswain's dirtand seaman's shirtsbrushed bawdily upon her chest...

~ Muse

one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duelist at his foe, blindly seeking with a six-inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. That captain was Ahab.

~ Herman Melville

They don't take the Bible as a general thing, sailors don't; though I will say that I never saw the man at sea who didn't give it the credit of being an uncommon good yarn.(Kentucky's Ghost)

~ Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Springtime blooms the starry treeBearing fruit the mariners see.High by night and low by dawnThe silver apple guides us home.

~ F.t. Mckinstry

Black seamen - or Black Jacks as African sailors were known - enjoyed a refreshing world of liberty and equality. Even if they were generally regulated to jobs such as cooks, servants, and muscians and endured thier fellow seamen's racism, they were still freemen in the Royal Navy. One famous black sailor wrote, I liked this little ship very much. I now became the captian's steward, in which I was very happy; for I was extremely well treated by all on board, and I had the leisure to improve myself in reading and writing.

~ Tony Williams

O Sailor!It’s the way I want to beIt’s beyond the pale for meIt’s what being unknown is all aboutIt’s the path I choose to takeIt’s the destiny I makeIt’s my life now – the only way outOut of circulation in another dimensionI carry you right inside my heartAs we’re one, moulded togetherAlways and forever, never apartIt’s a world where I’m aloneIt’s a place where I can atoneIt’s a severing of all ties I knowI feel so free and yet I’m boundI’m invisible and yet aroundI know I’ve got to go with the flowMy life now is like a sailboat ride,Destiny is the wind – with you by my side,I’m the sailor, who sets the course,Empowered by an incredible force.

~ Tapan Ghosh

If they will only hold their hands until the season is over, he promises them a royal carnival, when all grudges can he settled and the survivors may toss the non-survivors overboard and arrange a story as to how the missing men were lost at sea.

~ Jack London

There are no whores in Scaithe’s Ebb, or none that consider themselves as such, although there have always been many women who, if pressed, would describe themselves as much-married, with one husband on this ship here every six months, and another husband on that ship, back in port for a month or so every nine months. The mathematics of the thing have always kept most folk satisfied; and if ever it disappoints and a man returns to his wife while one of her other husbands is still in occupancy, why, then there is a fight — and the grog shops to comfort the loser. The sailors do not mind the arrangement, for they know that this way there will, at the least, be one person who, at the last, will notice when they do not come back from the sea, and will mourn their loss; and their wives content themselves with the certain knowledge that their husbands are also unfaithful, for there is no competing with the sea in a man’s affections, since she is both mother and mistress, and she will wash his corpse also, in time to come, wash it to coral and ivory and pearls.

~ Neil Gaiman

The sea, perhaps because of its saltiness, roughens the outside but keeps sweet the kernel of its servants' soul.

~ Joseph Conrad

It’s hard to beat a person who never gives up.

~ Babe Ruth

First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can.

~ Horatio Nelson

Strength lies not in defence but in attack.

~ Marquis De Acerba

Live for something rather than die for nothing.

~ George S. Patton Jr.

Victory is a thing of the will.

~ Marshal Foch

When I finally did confront Mr. Arcott, after my return to Falchester, he had the cheek to try and argue that his intellectual thievery had been a compliment and a favor. After all, it meant my work was good enough to be accepted into ibn Khattusi's series -- but of course they never would have taken a submission from a woman, so he submitted it on my behalf. What I said in reply is not fit to be printed here, as by then I had spent a good deal of time in the company of sailors, and had at my disposal a vocabulary not commonly available to ladies of quality.

~ Marie Brennan