100 Best Sailing Quotes To Get You Out On The Water

Sailing is a method that uses wind to propel a craft on the water's surface.

A point of sail is the course that is defined with true wind direction. Sailing, as fun as it seems, can be deadly if done alone.

Sailing has been an instrumental part of the development of civilization, aiding in mobility on the waterfront of society. Towards the Middle Ages, the advancements in sailing showed, which allowed explorers to go on longer voyages under extreme weather.

Improvements in masts, sails and the build of ships, with further development in the marine investigation, sailors were able to sail with more certainty. Until the mid-19th-century sailing was primarily used as a method for marine commerce, but now it is also a source of recreational activity and sports.

For more related content take a look at ocean quotes and boat quotes.

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Inspirational Sailing Quotes

Some of the very best smooth sailing quotes that will inspire and motivate you!

1. “I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.”

― Jimmy Dean.

2. “In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.”

― Rachel Carson.

3. “The only ship you can truly steer in this ocean is the one you’re sailing. Quit trying to alter the winds; harness them.”

― Richelle E. Goodrich, ‘Making Wishes’.

4. “The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”

― William Arthur Ward.

5. “On a day when the wind is perfect, the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty.”

— Rumi.

6. “It is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears.”

― John F. Kennedy.

7. “The cure for anything is saltwater – sweat, tears, or the sea.”

― Isak Dinesen.

8. “Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

― Mark Twain.

9. “One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.”

― Andre Gide.

10. “The charm of singlehanded cruising is not solitude, but independence.”

― Claud Worth.

11. “Calm sailing doesn’t come from calm waters, it comes from having a good navigator; a good crew and a good vessel.”

― Anthony T. Hincks.

12. “‘Tis the set of the sail that decides the goal, and not the storm of life.”

― Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

13. “I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”

— Louisa May Alcott, ‘Little Women’.

14. “Sometimes there is no time for the sea to calm down! If you have to reach your target, let your voyage start and let the storm be your path!”

― Mehmet Murat Ildan.

15. “We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.”

― Aristotle Onassis.

16. “We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”

― Dolly Parton.

17. “No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.”

― Hellen Keller.

Famous Sailing Quotes

Great quotes about sailing by world-renowned personalities like Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway.

18. “It's remarkable how quickly a good and favorable wind can sweep away the maddening frustrations of shore living.”

— Ernest K. Gann.

19. “Wind is to us what money is to life on shore.”

― Sterling Hayden.

20. “Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.”

― Christopher Columbus.

21. “It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.”

― Jim Rohn.

22. “The sooner we learn to be jointly responsible, the easier the sailing will be.”

― Ella Maillart.

23. “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.”

― Mark Twain.

24. “To reach a port we must set sail –

Sail, not tie at anchor

Sail, not drift.”

― Franklin D. Roosevelt.

25. “The lovely thing about cruising is that planning usually turns out to be of little use.”

― Dom Degnon, ‘Sails Full And By’.

26. “When you sail for the first time, you have one of two experiences. It becomes a one-time, bucket-list thing you check off your list, or it becomes a part of your soul forever.”

— Michelle Segrest.

27. “The days pass happily with me wherever my ship sails.”

― Joshua Slocum.

28. “If one doesn’t know to which port one is sailing, no port is favorable.”

― Lucius Annaneus Seneca.

29. “There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land again after a cheerful, careless voyage.”

― Mark Twain.

30. “A sailing ship is no democracy; you don’t caucus a crew as to where you’ll go anymore than you inquire when they’d like to shorten sail.”

― Sterling Hayden.

31. “Sailing - The fine art of slowly going nowhere at great expense while being cold, wet and miserable.”

― Irv Heller.

32. “Hoist up sail while gale doth last, Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure.”

― Robert Southwell.

33. “To meditate is to sail a course, to navigate, among problems many of which we are in the process of clearing up.”

― Jose Ortega y Gasset.

34. “The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.”

― Sir Richard Burton.

35. “The goal is not to sail the boat, but rather to help the boat sail herself.”

― John Rousmaniere.

Sailing Quotes About Life

Find the best sailing quotation to motivate yourself with these great quotes about life.

36. “It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage.”

― George William Curtis.

37. “When I’m out sailing, I don’t wonder what heaven is like because I know.”

― Anthony T. Hincks.

38. “Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.”

― Fitzhugh Dodson.

39. “To desire nothing beyond what you have is surely happiness. Aboard a boat, it is frequently possible to achieve just that. That is why sailing is a way of life, one of the finest of lives.”

― Carleton Mitchell.

40. “Sail through the good days, and on bad days pick a spot of blue sky to steer toward.”

― Richelle E. Goodrich, ‘Making Wishes’.

41. “You haven’t lived until you’ve sailed.”

― David Sedaris.

42. “To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.”

― Oliver Wendell Holmes.

43. “Have an anchor so that life doesn't toss you around.”

― Debby Ryan.

44. “On life's vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale.”

― Alexander Pope.

45. “Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.”

― Augustus Hare.

Sailor Quotes

Great sailor sayings and quotes praising sailors for their devotion to sailing the vast waters!

46. “If it wasn’t for seasickness, all the world would be sailors.”

― Charles Darwin.

47. “Any fool can carry on, but a wise man knows how to shorten sail in time.”

― Joseph Conrad.

48. “There is but a plank between a sailor and eternity.”

― Thomas Gibbons.

49. “A sailor is an artist whose medium is the wind. Live passionately, even if it kills you, because something is going to kill you anyway.”

― Webb Chiles.

50. “A man can pretend to be a lot of things in this world; but he can only pretend to be a sailor for as long as it takes to clear the harbor mouth!”

― Bernard Hayman.

51. “Only two sailors, in my experience, never ran aground. One never left port and the other was an atrocious liar.”

― Don Bamford.

52. “There are three sorts of people; those who are alive, those who are dead, and those who are at sea.”

― Aristotle.

53. “The art of the sailor is to leave nothing to chance.”

― Annie Van De Wiele.

54. “Sailors, with their built in sense of order, service and discipline, should really be running the world.”

― Nicholas Monsarrat.

55. “Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.”

― Charles C. Davis.

56. “Men in a ship are always looking up, and men ashore are usually looking down.”

― John Masefield.

57. “The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigator.”

― Edmund Gibbon.

58. “A captain who does not know where he wants to sail, there is no wind on Earth that will bring him there.”

― Ami Ayalon.

Quotes About The Sea

These quotes talking about the sea are a great source of information to learn from!

59. “How foolish to believe we are more powerful than the sea or the sky.”

― Ruta Sepetys, ‘Salt To The Sea’.

60. “For I say there is no other thing that is worse than the sea is for breaking a man, even though he may be a very strong one.”

― Homer.

61. “It isn't that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.”

― Francis Drake.

62. “The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths, it has its pearls too.”

― Vincent van Gogh.

63. “The sea does not like to be restrained.”

– Rick Riordan, ‘The Lightning Thief’.

64. “He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea.”

― Dr. Thomas Fuller.

65. “When I forget how talented God is, I look to the sea.”

― Whoopi Goldberg.

66. “I went to sea from the most tender age and have continued in a sea life to this day. Wherever anyone has sailed, there I have sailed.”

― Christopher Columbus.

67. “There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.”

― Joseph Conrad.

68. “The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.”

― Vincent Van Gogh.

69. “The sea is the same as it has been since before men ever went on it in boats.”

― Ernest Hemingway.

70. “I wanted freedom, open air and adventure. I found it on the sea.”

— Alain Gerbault.

71. “Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.”

― Robert Henri.

72. “It’s out there at sea that you are really yourself.”

― Vito Dumas.

73. “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson.

74. “The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.”

―Carl Sandburg.

75. “The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”

― Jacques Yves Cousteau.

76. “How inappropriate it is to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Sea.”

― Arthur C. Clarke.

77. “The sea drives truth into a man like salt.”

― Hilaire Belloc.

78. “At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much.”

― Robin Lee Graham.

79. “The sea will grant each man new hope, and sleep will bring dreams of home.”

― Christopher Columbus.

Ocean Quotes

Great quotes about the ocean that will leave you with a sense of awe!

80. “We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea whether it is to sail or to watch it we are going back from whence we came.”

― John F. Kennedy.

81. “You will love the ocean. It makes you feel small, but not in a bad way. Small because you realize you’re part of something bigger.”

― Lauren Myracle.

82. “You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.”

― Rumi.

83. “The ocean is an object of no small terror.”

― Edmund Burke.

84. “In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of you are found all the aspects of existence.”

― Kahlil Gibran Jr.

85. “The beauty and mystery of the ocean, fills our lives with wonders, vast beyond our imagination.”

― M. L. Borges, ‘By The Sea’.

86. “If you want to hear the distant voice of the ocean put your ear to the lips of a seashell.”

― Curtis Tyrone Jones.

87. “We are all born in a little port but not all of us sail the vast oceans! Majority remains in the port!”

― Mehmet Murat ildan.

88. “The ocean is this beautiful, unexplored place. Why on Earth everyone isn't down there, I don't know.”

― Graham Hawkes.

89. “Without the will or desire to achieve one is like flotsam on the oceans of time.”

― Steven Redhead, ‘Life Is Simply A Game’.

Ship Quotes

Inspirational sailing sayings about the majestic nature of ships.

90. “Ship is the nearest thing to dreams that hands have ever made, for somewhere deep in their oaken hearts the soul of a song is laid.”

— Robert N. Rose.

91. “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.”

― Zora Neale Hurston.

92. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why ships were built.”

― John A. Shedd.

93. “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”

― Antoine de Saint Exupery.

94. “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.

95. “If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out and meet it.”

― Jonathan Winters.

Boat Quotes

Great inspired with these great boat quotes!

96. “If the water is calm, the boat is also calm! If your thoughts are calm, your life is also calm!”

— Mehmet Murat ildan.

97. “Sometimes you need to tether your boats to stop them from following your dreams.”

— Anthony T. Hincks.

98. “Land was created to provide a place for boats to visit.”

― Brooks Atkinson.

99. “The boat is safer anchored at the port, but that is not the aim of boats.”

― Paulo Coelho.

100. “Even if it is made up of gold, the sailing boat can go nowhere without the humble wind!”

― Mehmet Murat ildan.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for sailing quotes then why not take a look at water quotes or fishing quotes.