Published September 26, 2023

Throughout history, people have had two emotions about the sea: fear and fascination. Some see the ocean as a barrier that keeps us confined to the coasts. Its unexplored depths are full of unknown dangers and unimaginable horrors. This fear is heightened because we have explored more outer space than our oceans.

But others view the sea as an opportunity for adventure and escape from the limitations of land. Its vastness offers endless possibilities. Its uncharted depths hold incredible wonders waiting to be discovered. This has led to the rich history of seafaring and the sciences dedicated to studying and protecting our seas.

Over time, we heard many wise words about the sea, capturing its beauty and power. Here are meaningful sea quotes to help you appreciate the wonders of the aquatic world.

Quotes about the sea

1. “At the beach, life is different. Time doesn’t move hour to hour but mood to moment. We live by the currents, plan by the tides, and follow the sun.” 

– Sandy Gingras

2. “And the winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.” 

– Edward Gibbon

3. “Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.” 

– Sarah Kay 

4. “But where, after all, would be the poetry of the sea were there no wild waves?” 

– Joshua Slocum 

5. “Even in the vast and mysterious reaches of the sea we are brought back to the fundamental truth that nothing lives to itself.” 

– Rachel Carson

6. “Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war.” 

– Loren Eiseley 

7. “For every moment the sea is peace and relief, there is another when it shivers and stirs to become chaos. It’s just as ready to claim as it is to offer.” 

– Tim Winton 

8. “Home is like the ship at sea,

Sailing on eternally;

Oft the anchor forth we cast,

But can never make it fast.” 

– Charles Dickens

9. “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

10. “I must go 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.” 

– John Masefield

11. “I pray to be like the ocean, with soft currents, maybe waves at times. More and more, I want the consistency rather than the highs and the lows.” 

– Drew Barrymore 

12. “It is extraordinary to see the sea; what a spectacle! She is so unfettered that one wonders whether it is possible that she again become calm.” 

– Claude Monet

13. “Take me to the ocean. Let me sail the open sea. To breathe the warm and salty air and dream of things to be.”

– Erica Billups

Sea Life Quotes

1. “A tourist remains an outsider throughout his visit; but a sailor is part of the local scene from the moment he arrives.” 

– Anne Davison 

2. “As the sea is beautiful not only in calm but also in storm, so is happiness found not only in peace but also in strife.” 

– Ivan Panin 

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

– Robin Lee Graham 

4. “Cruising has two pleasures. One is to go out in wider waters from a sheltered place. The other is to go into a sheltered place from wider waters.” 

– Howard Bloomfield 

5. “From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.” 

– Jacques Yves Cousteau  

6. “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Give him a fishing lesson and he’ll sit in a boat drinking beer every weekend.” 

– Alex Blackwell

7. “I am alone again and I want to be so; alone with the pure sky and open sea.” 

– Friedrich Nietzsche 

8. “I found myself in a sea in which the waves of joy and sorrow were clashing against each other.” 

– Naguib Mahfouz 

9. “I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.” 

– Albert Camus 

10. “If I had my will I would live in a ship on the sea, and never come nearer to humanity than that!” 

– Eleonora Duse 

11. “If you live a life of make-believe, your life isn’t worth anything until you do something that does challenge your reality. And to me, sailing the open ocean is a real challenge, because it’s life or death.” 

– Morgan Freeman

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

– Don Bamford 

Short Sea Quotes

1. “Boats, like whiskey, are all good.” 

– R. D. Culler 

2. “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

– Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

– Thomas Fuller 

4. “He who lets the sea lull him into a sense of security is in very grave danger.” 

– Hammond Innes 

5. “I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning to sail my ship.” 

– Louisa May Alcott 

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

– Alain Gerbault 

7. “If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it.” 

– Jonathan Winters

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

– George William Curtis 

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

– Vito Dumas 

10. “Land is the secure ground of home, the sea is like life, the outside, the unknown.” 

– Stephen Gardiner 

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

– John Masefield 

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

– Karen Blixen 

13. “I cannot not sail.” 

– E. B. White 

14. “Life is like the ocean, it goes up and down“

– Vanessa Paradis

15. “It’s always our self we find in the sea”

 – E.E Cummings