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“Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) first seen 1802 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The World Is Too Much with Us, l. 9 (wr. 1802; pub. 1807)
“It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) first seen 1802 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: It Is a Beautious Evening, l. 1 (wr. 1802; pub. 1807)
“Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart: Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea: Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, So didst thou travel on life's common way, In cheerful godliness.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) first seen 1802 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: London, 1802, l. 9 (wr. 1802; pub. 1807)
“Two Voices are there; one is of the sea, One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) first seen 1807 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Thought of a Briton on the Subjugation of Switzerland, l. 1 (1807)
“They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea: But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee.”
Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) said by 1875 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter is little known out of Germany. The only thing connected with him, we think, that has reached this country is his saying,—imported by Madame de Staël, and thankfully pocketed by most newspaper critics, — "Providence has given to the French the empire of the land; to the English that of the sea; to the Germans that of—the air!”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Have hung My dank and dropping weeds To the stern god of sea.”
John Milton (1608–1674) said by 1674 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.”
Walter Raleigh (1552–1618) said by 1618 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sea of upturned faces.”
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech (30 September 1842); reported in Edward Everett, ed., The Works of Daniel Webster (1851), Vol. II, page 117
Also quoted by: Sir Walter Scott, Walter Scott
“A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.”
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) said by 1852 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The while He sits whose name is Love, And waits, as Noah did, for the dove, To wit if she would fly to him.He waits for us, while, houseless things, We beat about with bruised wings On the dark floods and water-springs, The ruined world, the desolate sea; With open windows from the prime All night, all day, He waits sublime, Until the fulness of the time Decreed from His eternity.”
Jean Ingelow (1820–1897) said by 1897 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Work is its own best earthly need, Else have we none more than the sea-born throng Who wrought these marvellous isles that bloom afar.”
Jean Ingelow (1820–1897) said by 1897 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Bible is God's chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on rocks or bars.”
Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) said by 1887 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men seek retreats for themselves, houses in the country, sea-shores, and mountains; and thou too art wont to desire such things very much. But this is altogether a mark of the most common sort of men, for it is in thy power whenever thou shalt choose to retire into thyself. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul.”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let this always be plain to thee, that this piece of land is like any other; and that all things here are the same with all things on the top of a mountain, or on the sea-shore, or wherever thou chooses to be. For thou wilt find just what Plato says, Dwelling within the walls of the city as in a shepherd's fold on a mountain.”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hitler killed five million [sic] Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs.....It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany.... As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mahatma Gandhi, June 1946, in an interview with his biographer Louis Fischer. Quoted in "Gandhi on the Holocaust", Jewish Virtual Library.
“The new age, the new art, the new ethic and thought, And fools crying, Because it has begun It will continue as it has begun! The wheel runs fast, therefore the wheel will run Faster for ever. The old age is done, We have new lights and see without the sun. (Though they lay flat the mountains and dry up the sea, Wilt thou yet change, as though God were a god?)”
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Anyone who goes on the sea the year around in a small power boat does not seek danger. You may be absolutely sure that in a year you will have it without seeking, so you try always to avoid it all you can.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) first seen 1936 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In "On the Blue Water" Appendix originally published in Esquire April 1936
“O more than moon, Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere, Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear To teach the sea what it may do too soon.”
John Donne (1572–1631) said by 1631 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who ever loves, if he do not propose The right true end of love, he's one that goes To sea for nothing but to make him sick.”
John Donne (1572–1631) said by 1631 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
John Donne (1572–1631) said by 1631 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Meditation 17. This was the source for the title of Hemingway's novel. Original text: "No man is an Iland intire of itselfe; every man is a peece of the continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the S…
“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) said by 1727 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27). Compare: "As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore", John Milton, Paradise Regained, Book iv. Line 3…
“[G]iven our inability over the past two decades to deal with an unbreakable chain of unemployment, debt, inflation and no real growth, we have drifted farther and farther out into a cold, unfriendly, confusing sea. The new certitude of those in positions of authority — those out of the water — is that the certain answer is to cut away the life preservers.”
John Ralston Saul (born 1947) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Lesbians love whale watching! They fuckin love it! THEY LOVE IT MORE THAN PUSSY! It's any sea mammal really. Whales, manatees, dolphins. They go crazy for the dolphins. I don't know what it is- I think it's the blowhole.”
Margaret Cho (born 1968) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Que el cielo exista, aunque mi lugar sea el infierno.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1941 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Library of Babel" (1941)
“¿De qué otra forma se puede amenazar que no sea de muerte? Lo interesante, lo original, sería que alguien lo amenace a uno con la inmortalidad.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) said by 1986 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Borges, Biografía Verbal (1988) by Roberto Alifano, p. 23
“Doctors is all swabs... and that doctor there, why, what do he know about seafaring men? I been in places hot as pitch, and mates dropping round with Yellow Jack, and the blessed land a-heaving like the sea with earthquakes — what do the doctor know of lands like that? — and I lived on rum, I tell you.”
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will.This be the verse you grave for me: Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill.”
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) said by 1894 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No doubt the spirit or energy of the world is what is acting in us, as the sea is what rises in every little wave; but it passes through us, and cry out as we may, it will move on. Our privilege is to have perceived it as it moves.”
George Santayana (1863–1952) said by 1952 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“After meat comes mustard; or, like money to a starving man at sea, when there are no victuals to be bought with it.”
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) said by 1616 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To do good to villains is to pour water into the sea.”
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) said by 1616 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pocas o ninguna vez se cumple con la ambición que no sea con daño de tercero.”
Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) said by 1616 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“O magic sleep! O comfortable bird, That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind Till it is hush'd and smooth!”
John Keats (1795–1821) said by 1821 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“'Dry again?' said the Crab to the Rock-Pool. 'So would you be,' replied the Rock-Pool, 'if you had to satisfy, twice a day, the insatiable sea.'”
Cyril Connolly (1903–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live; Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.”
Edward Lear (1812–1888) first seen 1871 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Jumblies", st. 1, in Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets (1871).
“Calico Jam, The little Fish swam, Over the syllabub sea, He took off his hat, To the Sole and the Sprat, And the Willeby-Wat,— But he never came back to me!”
Edward Lear (1812–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea In a beautiful pea green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above, And sang to a small guitar, "O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!”
Edward Lear (1812–1888) said by 1888 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sea is fulfilled, and the Empire fell apart. Lord, Portugal must yet fulfill itself!”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh salty sea, how much of your salt are tears of Portugal!”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God gave the sea the danger and the abyss, but it was in it that He mirrored the sky.”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It's in an inland sea that the river of my life ended.”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Whilst the misguided Follower climbs with Pain, Mountains of Whimsies, heapt in his own Brain, Stumbling from Thought to Thought, falls headlong down Into Doubt's boundless Sea, where like to drown, Books bear him up a-while, and make him try To swim with Bladders of Philosophy.”
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) said by 1680 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“So our lives glide on: the river ends we don't know where, and the sea begins, and then there is no more jumping ashore.”
George Eliot (1819–1880) said by 1880 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Life is the gathering of waves to a head, at death they break into a million fragments each one of which, however, is absorbed at once into the sea of life and helps to form a later generation which comes rolling on till it too breaks.”
Samuel Butler (novelist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tell me, O muse, of that w:Odysseus|ingenious hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home.”
Samuel Butler (novelist) first seen 1900 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Odyssey of Homer (1900), Book I, opening lines
“Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escap'd shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances.”
David Hume (1711–1776) said by 1776 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate, And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate, Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore; Long labours both by sea and land he bore.”
John Dryden (1631–1700) said by 1700 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is a night of summer,—and the sea Sleeps, like a child, in mute tranquillity. Soft o'er the deep-blue wave the moonlight breaks; Gleaming, from out the white clouds of its zone,”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source