Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,159,190 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina
Nature
LoveFriendshipHappinessHopeFearCourageDeathLifeTimeWarPeaceFreedomTruthWisdomKnowledgeScienceArtMusicNatureMoneyWorkPowerGodBeautyLaughterFamilySuccess and failureChangeDreamsBooks and reading
“[Serialism] is like a sailless ship, driven out to sea by its captain, who has grown tired of its being used only as a pontoon, and who is privately convinced that by subjecting life aboard to the rules of an elaborate protocol, he will prevent the crew from thinking nostalgically either of their home port or of their ultimate destination.…”
Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009) first seen 1975 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Raw and the Cooked : Introduction to a Science of Mythology (1975) Vol. I, [Le Cru et le Cuit, as translated by Doreen and John Weightman], p. 113
“The sea is calm you said. Peaceful. Calm above, but below a world of gliding monsters preying on their fellows. Murderers, all of them. Only the strongest teeth survive. And who's to tell me it's any different here on board, or yonder on dry land.”
Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'd rather be buried at sea than on the shore when I come to die. Will you stand by the plank, mates, so I can shake a friendly hand before I sink?”
Peter Ustinov (1921–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind, struggling to be free, and ending just where it began.”
William Hazlitt (1778–1830) first seen 1823 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Common Places," No. 60, The Literary Examiner (September - December 1823)
“To live in such a place was, for Isabel, to hold to her ear all day a shell of the sea of the past. This vague eternal rumour kept her imagination awake.”
Henry James (1843–1916) said by 1916 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have fed our sea for a thousand years And she calls us, still unfed, Though there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) first seen 1896 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Song of the Dead, II, Stanza 1 (1896).
“There be triple ways to take, of the eagle or the snake, Or the way of a man with a maid; But the fairest way to me is a ship's upon the sea In the heel of the North-East Trade.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre, He'd 'eard men sing by land an' sea; An' what he thought 'e might require, 'E went an' took—the same as me!”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) first seen 1894 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: When 'Omer Smote 'is Bloomin' Lyre, Stanza 1 (1894).
“Who hath desired the Sea?—the sight of salt water unbounded— The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) first seen 1903 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Sea and the Hills, Stanza 1 (1903).
“I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all; to men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them.”
Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) first seen 1932 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: King George V's Christmas broadcast, 1932
“A wet sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast, And fills the white and rustling sail, And bends the gallant mast. And bends the gallant mast, my boys, While like the eagle free Away the good ship flies, and leaves Old England on the lee.”
Allan Cunningham (1784–1842) said by 1842 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea"; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“When Israel was from bondage led, Led by the Almighty's hand From out of foreign land, The great sea beheld and fled.”
Abraham Cowley (1618–1667) said by 1667 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The area extending from the Himalayas in the north to the sea and a thousand yojanas wide from east to west is the area of operation of the King-Emperor.”
Chanakya (375–283 BC) said by 283 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Chakravarti-kshetra as described by Kautilya: Arthashastra 9:1:17 (tr. L.N. Rangarajan), quoted from Elst, Koenraad (2001). Decolonizing the Hindu mind: Ideological development of Hindu revivalism. New Delhi: Rupa. p.457
“The garden is a raging sea, The hurricane is snarling; Oh, happy you and happy me! Isn't the lightning darling?”
Ogden Nash (1902–1971) said by 1971 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Republican Party is the ship and all else is the sea around us.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Frederick Douglass American Hero (2008), by Connie A. Miller, Sr., p. 277
“There is something about Hayti which we have to deplore, and so there is about the United States. Let us go back 100 years and look at Hayti, and we find it surrounded by slavery and the whole Caribbean Sea reddened by the curse.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) said by 1895 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For colored men the Republican party is the deck, all outside is the sea.”
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) first seen 1872 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech: “The Republican Party Must Be Maintained in Power” speech, April 13, 1872, Douglas Papers, ser. I, 4:298
“When I was a child, love to me was what the sea is to a fish: something you swim in while you are going about the important affairs of life.”
P. L. Travers (1899–1996) first seen 1978 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From "I Never Wrote for Children," by P. L. Travers, in The New York Times Magazine (2 July 1978).
“All the sadder that Stone, on the brink of his greatest work, turned one day and went off to live in a town we shall call Obscurity by the sea best named The Past.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1954 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone (1954)
“Oh, oh. Here he comes, Moses crossing a Black Sea of bile.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become.”
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) said by 1860 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
“There must be something strangely sacred about salt. It is in our tears and in the sea”
Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) said by 1931 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Germans may take Paris, but that will not prevent me from going on with the war. We will fight on the Loire, we will fight on the Garronne, we will fight even in the Pyrenees. And if at last we are driven off the Pyrenees, we will continue the war at sea.”
Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) said by 1929 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Clemenceau and the Third Republic (1946) by John Hampden Jackson.
“There is enough sadness in life without having fellows like Gussie Fink-Nottle going about in sea boots.”
P. G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As far as the eye could reach, I found myself gazing on a surging sea of aunts. There were tall aunts, short aunts, stout aunts, thin aunts, and an aunt who was carrying on a conversation in a low voice to which nobody seemed to be paying the slightest attention.”
P. G. Wodehouse (1881–1975) said by 1975 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“These are the sounds in the night: First, the sound of darkness, lapping at the edges of a sea of movement, itself called silence. Then, second, the fingertip-sensed sound of the cyclical movement of the universe as it gnaws its way through the dust-film called Time. And last, the animal sounds of two people making love. The moist sounds of two bodies in concert.”
Harlan Ellison (1934–2018) said by 2018 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. Heresy is the last and best thought. It is the perpetual New World, the unknown sea, toward which the brave all sail. It is the eternal horizon of progress. Heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to a new thought. Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy, a coffin.”
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) said by 1899 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unfathomable mind, now beacon, now sea.”
Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) said by 1989 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are no nearer heaven on the top of Mount Cenis than at the bottom of the sea; take the distance with your astrolabe. They debase God even to the carnal knowledge of women, to so many times, and so many generations.”
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) said by 1592 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Do not wade far out into the dangerous sea of this world's comfort. Take the good that God provides you, but say of it, "It passeth away;" for, indeed, it is but a temporary supply for a temporary need. Never suffer your goods to become your God.”
Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“His deeds inimitable, like the sea That shuts still as it opes, and leaves no tracts Nor prints of precedent for poor men's facts.”
George Chapman (1559–1634) said by 1634 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea Loves t' have his sails fill'd with a lusty wind, Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, And his rapt ship run on her side so low That she drinks water, and her keel plows air.”
George Chapman (1559–1634) said by 1634 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then forth he came, his both knees falt'ring, both His strong hands hanging down, and all with froth His cheeks and nostrils flowing, voice and breath Spent to all use, and down he sunk to death. The sea had soaked his heart through; all his veins His toils had rack'd t'a labouring woman's pains. Dead weary was he.”
George Chapman (1559–1634) said by 1634 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it's tuna, but it… it says "Chicken... by the Sea".”
Jessica Simpson (born 1980) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica, "Newlyweds Clean House" [1.01], 19 August 2003
“No voice divine the storm allay'd, No light propitious shone; When, snatch'd from all effectual aid, We perish'd, each alone; But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelmed in deeper gulphs than he.”
William Cowper (1731–1800) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Castaway", l. 61 (1799)
“God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.”
William Cowper (1731–1800) said by 1800 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am monarch of all I survey, My right there is none to dispute; From the center all round to the sea I am lord of the fowl and the brute.”
William Cowper (1731–1800) said by 1800 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When you see reference to a new paradigm you should always, under all circumstances, take cover. Because ever since the great tulipmania in 1637, speculation has always been covered by a new paradigm. There was never a paradigm so new and so wonderful as the one that covered John Law and the South Sea Bubble — until the day of disaster.”
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Galbraith on crashes, Japan and Walking Sticks" by Ben Laurance and William Keegan, in The Observer (21 June 1998)
“All I ask is our common due! For those in peril on the sea.… Give us this day our daily cue.”
Tom Stoppard (1937–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now there was a young gentleman which had married a merchant's wife. And having a little wanton money, which him thought burned out the bottom of his purse, in the first year of his wedding took his wife with him and went over sea, for none other errand but to see Flanders and France and ride out one summer in those countries.”
Thomas More (1478–1535) first seen 1530 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Works (c. 1530)
“And so men organized themselves for the sake of their technology as they never had for their principles. The sea’s politics were unarguable.”
Lois McMaster Bujold (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Some love to roam o’er the dark sea’s foam, Where the shrill winds whistle free.”
Charles Mackay (author) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Charles Mackay
“Running all over the sea trying to get behind the weather.”
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Typhoon (1902), Ch. 2
“The sea never changes and its works, for all the talk of men, are wrapped in mystery.”
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) first seen 1902 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Typhoon (1902), Ch. 2
“This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak.”
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had been six years at sea, but had only seen Melbourne and Sydney, very good places, charming places in their way — but Bankok!”
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For all that has been said of the love that certain natures (on shore) have professed to feel for it, for all the celebrations it had been the object of in prose and song, the sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness, and playing the part of dangerous abettor of world-wide ambitions.”
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sea — this truth must be confessed — has no generosity. No display of manly qualities — courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness — has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power.”
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He feared neither God, nor devil, nor man, nor wind, nor sea, nor his own conscience. And I believe he hated everybody and everything. But I think he was afraid to die. I believe I am the only man who ever stood up to him.”
Joseph Conrad (1857–1924) said by 1924 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Writing criticism is to writing fiction and poetry as hugging the shore is to sailing in the open sea.”
John Updike (1932–2009) first seen 1983 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Foreword to Hugging the Shore (1983)