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There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.
        - Water Rat, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it - but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
        - Oliver Wendel Holmes

There was a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left port in.
        - Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

Red sky by morning,
sailor take warning.
Red sky at night,
sailor's delight.
        - Anonymous

Raise your sail one foot, and you get ten feet of wind.         - Chinese Proverb

I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way.
        - John Paul Jones

A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast.
        - Allan Cunningham, A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea

When in doubt, let it out.
        - Anonymous

When you spend so much time pushing, caring for, cajoling and maintaining a beautiful racing machine like this, you get very close. She's looked after me well, and I look after her. I haven't been lonely at all.
        - Ellen MacArthur

Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea
Loves t'have his sails filled 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, Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron

There isn't no call to go talking of pushing and pulling. Boats are quite tricky enough for those that sit still without looking further for the cause of trouble.
        - Sam Gamgee, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

On life's vast ocean diversely we sail,
Reason the card, but passion is the gale.
        - Alexander Pope, Essay on Man

A strong nor’-wester ’s blowing, Bill!
Hark! don’t ye hear it roar now?
Lord help ’em, how I pities them
Unhappy folks on shore now!
        -The Sailor’s Consolation

It is time to be old
To take in sail.
        - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never in my life before have I experienced such beauty, and fear at the same time. Ten icebergs so far today ...
        - Ellen MacArthur

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