Favorite “quote” from a book about the sailing/ocean

  • Zombie P1ague
    Marauder
    Insider

    There are so many amazing stories about the sea, the worlds oceans and sailing across them.

    “But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”

    “I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.” “He no longer dreamed of storms, nor of women, nor of great occurrences, nor of great fish, nor fights, nor contests of strength, nor of his wife.”

    “It is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.“

    Hemingway “The Old Man And The Sea”

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  • Summer Scholar
    Master
    Founder

    This one always earns a chuckle from me:

    “A fragrant breeze wandered up from the quiet sea, trailed along the beach, and drifted back to the sea again, wondering where to go next. On a mad impulse it went up to the beach again. It drifted back to sea.”

    -Douglas Adams "Life, the Universe, and Everything"

  • IceCreamManatee
    Marauder
    Founder

    "Long have you timidly waded
    Holding a plank by the shore,
    Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
    To jump off in the midst of the sea,
    Rise again, nod to me, shout,
    And laughingly dash with your hair."

    -Walt Whitman

    (I'm hoping to fashion my pirate a bit after Walt Whitman.)

    alt text

  • JCMDeadpool
    Ship Mate

    @summer-scholar I read that book in german and instantly recognized it. Thanks for that.

  • Stacky a
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain
    Founder

    I love this quote from the classic children's book Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.

    It seams to sum up pretty much my experience in Sea of Thieves so far :)

    "There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

    wind in the willows

  • Carl2468
    Marauder
    Founder

    @zombie-p1ague
    “Bring me that horizon,” -Captain Jack Sparrow

  • Chaos217
    Master

    "Am I making myself clear, Orrin? I don't regret how I've lived these past few years. I move where I will. I set no appointments. I guard no borders. What landbound king has the freedom of a ship's captain? The Sea of Brass provides. When I need haste, it gives me winds. When I need gold, it gives me galleons. Only gods-damned fools die for lines drawn on maps," said Zamira. "But nobody can draw lines around my ship. If they try, all I need to do to slip away is set more sail."

    "We may need to ready ourselves to repel boarders.” “With what? One stiletto and hurtful insinuations about their mothers?"

    Red seas under red skies - Scott Lynch

  • Lucky Capt Jack
    Founder

    “The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.”
    ― Isak Dinesen

  • KattTruewalker
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder
    Deckhand

    @zombie-p1ague - so many favourites, poems especially but this one is particularly vivid.

    “We clear the harbor and the wind catches her sails and my beautiful ship leans over ever so gracefully, and her elegant bow cuts cleanly into the increasing chop of the waves. I take a deep breath and my chest expands and my heart starts thumping so strongly I fear the others might see it beat through the cloth of my jacket. I face the wind and my lips peel back from my teeth in a grin of pure joy.”
    ― L.A. Meyer, Under the Jolly Roger: Being an Account of the Further Nautical Adventures of Jacky Faber

  • Wargrym
    Founder

    Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the wind in you sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

    Mark Twain.

    (Had to throw in a Mark Twain in there somewhere. Also, the below quote that most people would have probably heard but may not know it's source)

    I must down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
    And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by;

    John Masefield Sea fever.

    The first two lines of a twelve line work. One of the few pieces I read at school that stayed with me LONG after. Well worth a read.

  • RunRookieRun
    Founder

    "No matter the technology available to you, when at sea the only thing that keeps you alive is a fragile tub of wood and metal. Take good care of it."

    From a handbook on the school ship used in the Norwegian navy officers school.

    Boy where there times where that felt really, really true. The sea is really able to put the fear of God into a man.

  • ANUBIS0311
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    "Drink up me hearties yo ho"
    -Captain Jack Sparrow

  • Capt LaChuck
    Lord
    Insider
    Founder

    “The weather had freshened almost to coldness, for the wind was coming more easterly, from the chilly currents between Tristan and the Cape; the sloth was amazed by the change; it shunned the deck and spent its time below. Jack was in his cabin, pricking the chart with less satisfaction than he could have wished: progress, slow, serious trouble with the mainmast-- unaccountable headwinds by night-- and sipping a glass of grog; Stephen was in the mizentop, teaching Bonden to write and scanning the sea for his first albatross. The sloth sneezed, and looking up, Jack caught its gaze fixed upon him; its inverted face had an expression of anxiety and concern. 'Try a piece of this, old c**k,' he said, dipping his cake in the grog and proffering the sop. 'It might put a little heart into you.' The sloth sighed, closed its eyes, but gently absorbed the piece, and sighed again.

    Some minutes later he felt a touch upon his knee: the sloth had silently climbed down and it was standing there, its beady eyes looking up into his face, bright with expectation. More cake, more grog: growing confidence and esteem. After this, as soon as the drum had beat the retreat, the sloth would meet him, hurrying toward the door on its uneven legs: it was given its own bowl, and it would grip it with its claws, lowering its round face into it and pursing its lips to drink (its tongue was too short to lap). Sometimes it went to sleep in this position, bowed over the emptiness.

    'In this bucket,' said Stephen, walking into the cabin, 'in this small half-bucket, now, I have the population of Dublin, London, and Paris combined: these animalculae-- what is the matter with the sloth?' It was curled on Jack's knee, breathing heavily: its bowl and Jack's glass stood empty on the table. Stephen picked it up, peered into its affable bleary face, shook it, and hung it upon its rope. It seized hold with one fore and one hind foot, letting the others dangle limp, and went to sleep.

    Stephen looked sharply round, saw the decanter, smelt to the sloth, and cried, 'Jack, you have debauched my sloth.”
    ― Patrick O'Brian, H.M.S. Surprise

    alt text

  • Capn Seli
    Master
    Insider
    Founder

    Here are my two, straight from the most classic Pirate adventure novel ever!

    “Seaward ho! Hang the treasure! It's the glory of the sea that has turned my head.”

    “Fifteen men on the Dead Man's Chest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Drink and the devil had done for the rest Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”

    ― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

  • IceCreamManatee
    Marauder
    Founder

    I posted some Whitman earlier (he has quite a few sea-themed poems), but my favorite maritime words come from "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This bit seems appropriate for us Alpha and Beta players, adopters of the sea:

    "The fair breeze blew,
    The white foam flew,
    And the forrow followed free.
    We were the first to ever burst
    into the silent sea."

    And this bit, which seems to befit the skeletons in SoT:

    "They groaned, they stirred, they
    all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved
    their eyes; It had been strange,
    even in a dream, To have seen
    those dead men rise."

  • Edemardil
    Captain
    Insider
    Founder

    @zombie-p1ague Commenting to read all of these later. I just realized that I do not read enough books about the sea.

  • Zombie P1ague
    Marauder
    Insider

    @edemardil There are a lot of good books.
    I loved the “Old Man and the Sea” because it was about a man that was an ex arm wrestler who turned fisherman.
    The idea that a man is not made for defeat, a man can be destroyed but not defeated. It speaks to me in my own personal life.

    I was hurt in an accident and spent 15 months in a retirement home for physical therapy and wound care. I had to learn how to walk again. That quote gave me strength it fueled me to push threw.

  • PyroPixie666
    Seafarer
    Founder

    She came from the ocean,
    this wild girl from the sea,
    her hair flying southwards,
    she walked towards me.

    A west to east smile,
    with eyes steely grey,
    like a storm in the distance,
    rolling in from the bay.

    We kissed with the sunrise,
    made love when it set,
    a promise by moonlight,
    came dawn, my regret.

    He left for the ocean,
    this boy from the land,
    his spirit soars northward,
    his heart in her hands. -Michael Faudet

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