Sea Quotes

“How foolish to believe we are more powerful than the sea or the sky.”
― Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea

“Sea-fever

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.”
― John Masefield, Sea Fever: Selected Poems

“Darwin may have been quite correct in his theory that man descended from the apes of the forest, but surely woman rose from the frothy sea, as resplendent as Aphrodite on her scalloped chariot.”
― Margot Datz, A Survival Guide for Landlocked Mermaids

“May your love for me be
like
the scent of the evening sea

drifting in
through a quiet window

so i do not have to run
or chase or fall
... to feel you

all i have to do
is
breathe.”
― Sanober Khan, A Thousand Flamingos

“Your daughter, your sister. She is salt to the sea,”
― Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea

“There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.”
― Khalil Gibran

“Ô, Wanderess, Wanderess
When did you feel your
most euphoric kiss?
Was I the source
of your greatest bliss?”
― Roman Payne

“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, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story

“I was happy anywhere I could see the ocean.”
― Ai Yazawa, Nana, Vol. 18

“And what the sharp old medic suggested to the Pentagon sent shivers down their spines and set the alarm bells ringing all the way to the White House”
― Michael Parker, The Devil's Trinity

“I want to learn how to speak to anyone at any time and make us both feel a little bit better, lighter, richer, with no commitments of ever meeting again. I want to learn how to stand wherever with whoever and still feel stable. I want to learn how to unlock the locks to our minds, my mind, so that when I hear opinions or views that don’t match up with mine, I can still listen and understand. I want to burn up lifeless habits of following maps and to-do lists, concentrated liquids to burn my mind and throat
and I want to go back to the way nature shaped me. I want to learn to go on well with whatever I have in my hands at the moment
in a natural state of mind,
certain like the sea.

I will find comfort in the rhythm of the sea.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

“Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.”
― Nizar Qabbani

“I looked upon the sea, it was to be my grave”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“Time is more complex near the sea than in any other place, for in addition to the circling of the sun and the turning of the seasons, the waves beat out the passage of time on the rocks and the tides rise and fall as a great clepsydra.”
― John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat

“The sea is a desert of waves,
A wilderness of water.”
― Langston Hughes, Selected Poems

“The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities... If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.”
― Rachel Carson

“she's got
oceans
tucked away
in her hair

poems swim
under her skin.”
― Sanober Khan, A Thousand Flamingos

“They sat on the outcropping of stone and at bread and fruit. Kasta watched the long grass moving around them. The wind pushed it, attacked it, struck it in one place than another. It rose and fell again. It flowed, like water.
"Is this what the sea is like?" Kasta asked, and they both turned to her, surprised. "Does the sea move the way this grass moves?"
“It's like the sea,” she said.
Giddon’s eyes on her were incredulous.
“What? Is it such a strange thing to say?”
“It’s a strange thing for you to say.” He shook his head. He gathered their bread and fruit, then rose. “The Lienid fighter is filling your mind with romantic notions.”
― kristin cashore, Graceling

“Grey rocks, and greyer sea,
And surf along the shore --
And in my heart a name
My lips shall speak no more.
”
― Charles G.D. Roberts

“That’s the second time you’ve apologised in less than a minute, Remo. When you have to do that to an admiral it could be your career on the line.”
― Michael Parker, The Devil's Trinity

“And I shall watch the ferry boats, and they'll get high,
On a bluer ocean against tomorrow's sky,
And I will never grow so old again,
And I will walk and talk, in gardens all wet with rain.

- Sweet Thing”
― Van Morrison, Lit Up Inside: Selected Lyrics

“Here we go mother on the shipless ocean.
Pity us, pity the ocean, here we go.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“my dear,
we are all made of water.
it's okay to rage. sometimes
it's okay to rest. to recede.”
― Sanober Khan, A Thousand Flamingos

“You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in God, as misers do in gold, and Kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world.

Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in all Ages as with your walk and table: till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made: till you love men so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own: till you delight in God for being good to all: you never
enjoy the world.”
― Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditations

“There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath...”
― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick or, The Whale

“The world is a wide place where we stumble like children learning to walk. The world is a bright mosaic where we learn like children to see, where our little blurry eyes strive greedily to take in as much light and love and colour and detail as they can.

The world is a coaxing whisper when the wind lips the trees, when the sea licks the shore, when animals burrow into earth and people look up at the sympathetic stars. The world is an admonishing roar when gales chase rainclouds over the plains and whip up ocean waves, when people crowd into cities or intrude into dazzling jungles.

What right have we to carry our desperate mouths up mountains or into deserts? Do we want to taste rock and sand or do we expect to make impossible poems from space and silence? The vastness at least reminds us how tiny we are, and how much we don't yet understand. We are mere babes in the universe, all brothers and sisters in the nursery together. We had better learn to play nicely before we're allowed out..... And we want to go out, don't we? ..... Into the distant humming welcoming darkness.”
― Jay Woodman, SPAN

“In still moments by the sea life seems large-drawn and simple. It is there we can see into ourselves.”
― Rolf Edberg

“But the sea
which no one tends
is also a garden”
― William Carlos Williams, Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems

“The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof.”
― Queen Elizabeth I, The letters of Queen Elizabeth I;

“Tell her this
And more,—
That the king of the seas
Weeps too, old, helpless man.
The bustling fates
Heap his hands with corpses
Until he stands like a child
With surplus of toys.”
― Stephen Crane, The Complete Poems of Stephen Crane