Set sail for adventure and inspiration with our collection of the best sailing quotes to the power of the wind and the majesty of the sea.
Sailing is the art of using wind to propel a vessel across water, whether for practical purposes like fishing and transportation or for leisurely pursuits like racing and cruising. It is a way of life that requires an intimate connection with the natural elements of wind, water, and weather.
They can also be a source of inspiration and joy, as it allows us to explore new horizons and embrace the beauty of the natural world in a unique and profound way. To capture the imagination and call us to adventure, we complied the most inspiring sailing quotes.
From famous poets and writers to adventurers and daily people, these quotes evoke the beauty and wonder of the sea, the challenges and dangers of sailing. So, sit back and enjoy our sailing quotes to inspire us to push beyond our limits, to embrace the unknown, and to find joy and meaning in the journey.
Motivational sailing quotes
Find inspiration and motivation for your next adventure with our top 10 motivational sailing quotes!
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 Sr.
We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.
Dolly Parton
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 your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain
Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.
Rumi
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
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
William Arthur Ward
A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.
Grace Hopper
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 Wendell Holmes, Jr.
We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Inspirational sailing quotes
Whether you’re an experienced sailor or simply drawn to the sea, these ten inspirational sailing quotes capture the beauty and wonder of the open ocean.
We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came.
John F. Kennedy
Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.
David Lee Roth
We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.
Aristotle Onassis
The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
Jacques Yves Cousteau
The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much.
Robin Lee Graham
Land was created to provide a place for boats to visit.
Brooks Atkinson
There is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
John Ruskin
If my ship sails from sight, it doesn’t mean my journey ends, it simply means the river bends.
Enoch Powell
I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full.
Arthur Ashe
Smooth sailing quotes
I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full.
Arthur Ashe
The course of true love never did run smooth.
William Shakespeare
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable.
Seneca the Younger
Now I’m smooth sailing. Oceans clear and blue. Now I’m smooth sailing. Sailing away from you.
Elizabeth Gerardi
If you’re going through difficult times today, hold steady. It will change soon. If you are experiencing smooth sailing and easy times now, brace yourself. It will change soon. The only thing you can be certain of is change.
James Dobson
Sometimes when you are sailing you have periods of heavy waves with breaks of calm smooth waters. We had zero breaks from the heavy waves. They just kept coming.
Michelle Segrest
And we’re just kids we’re just sailing. Spirits never failing, expectations nailing. When we were younger all our days were smooth sailing.
KLB
It is not the ship so much as the skillful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage.
George William Curtis
Be in a state of gratitude for everything that shows up in your life. Be thankful for the storms as well as the smooth sailing. What is the lesson or gift in what you are experiencing right now? Find your joy not in what’s missing in your life but in how you can serve.
Wayne Dyer
Everyone needs to realize why am I here? It comes in everyone’s life; you ask why am I here? What am I doing? Once you are able to answer that question for yourself honestly, you have smooth sailing.
Jimmy Cliff
Sailing quotes
It’s remarkable how quickly a good and favorable wind can sweep away the maddening frustrations of shore living.
Ernest K. Gann
The lovely thing about cruising is that planning usually turns out to be of little use.
Dom Degnon
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
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
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
There is no unhappiness like the misery of sighting land again after a cheerful, careless voyage.
Mark Twain
Sailing – The fine art of slowly going nowhere at great expense while being cold, wet and miserable.
Irv Heller
Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea.
Charles Cook
I hate storms, but calms undermine my spirits.
Bernard Moitessier
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
Sailing quotes funny
If you need some good laugh, check out this section of funny sailing quotes.
Never weather–beaten sail more willing bent to shore.
Thomas Campion
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned… a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
Samuel Johnson
There’s no such thing as bad weather, just soft people.
Bill Bowerman
Out of sight of land the sailor feels safe. It is the beach that worries him.
Charles Davis
Sailors, with their built in sense of order, service and discipline, should really be running the world.
Nicholas Monsarrat
If you do not know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.
Henry A. Kissinger
What I mean by that is that the point of life, as I see it, is not to write books or scale mountains or sail oceans, but to achieve happiness, and preferably an unselfish happiness.
Bernard Cornwell
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
Separately there was only wind, water, sail, and hull, but at my hand the four had been given purpose and direction.
Lowell Thomas
I have no interest in sailing around the world. Not that there is any lack of requests for me to do so.
Edward Heath
Witty sailing quotes
She watched the gap between ship and shore grow to a huge gulf. Perhaps this was a little like dying, the departed no longer visible to the others, yet both still existed, only in different worlds.
Susan Wiggs
The sooner we learn to be jointly responsible, the easier the sailing will be.
Ella Maillart
Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.
Thomas B. Macaulay
If the Spray discovered no continents on her voyage, it may be that there were no more continents to be discovered. She did not seek new worlds, or sail to pow–wow about the dangers of the sea.
Joshua Slocum
Any damn fool can navigate the world sober. It takes a really good sailor to do it drunk.
Francis Chichester
Most people are willing to take the Sermon on the Mount as a flag to sail under, but few will use it as a rudder by which to steer.
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
It’s hard to get lost if you don’t know where you’re going.
Jim Jarmusch
If the Lord says to give more than you think you are able to give, know that He will provide for you. Whether things are sailing smoothly or the bottom has dropped out, He is always trustworthy. You can count on Almighty God to keep His everlasting Word.
Charles Stanley
Design has taken the place of what sailing used to be.
Dennis Conner
I can’t control the wind but I can adjust the sail.
Ricky Skaggs
Sailing sayings and quotes
If there is a wave there must be a wind.
Chinese Proverb
Every man should pull a boat over a mountain once in his life.
Werner Herzog
Give wind and tide a chance to change.
Richard E. Byrd
No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
Michel de Montaigne
Whenever the water rises, the boat will rise too.
Chinese Proverb
The ship that will not obey the helm will have to obey the rocks.
English Proverbs
A man without money is like a boat without sails.
Swedish Proverbs
God provides the wind, but man must raise the sails.
St. Augustine
If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
Hoist your sail when the wind is fair.
Classic Proverbs
Set sail quotes
Get inspired to take on the challenges of the open ocean with our ten set sail quotes!
‘Tis the set of the sail that decides the goal, and not the storm of life.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
To reach a port we must set sail
Franklin D. Roosevelt
It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go.
Jim Rohn
Those who want to row on the ocean of human knowledge do not get far, and the storm drives those out of their course who set sail.
Franz Grillparzer
To reach a port we must set sail –
Sail, not tie at anchor
Sail, not drift.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Without goals and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.
Fitzhugh Dodson
We be sailing at first light, come gather. Set our course for the crossing together.
John Fogerty
As soon as you set foot on a yacht you belong to some man, not to yourself, and you die of boredom.
Coco Chanel
Now he’s sailing in the sky, beyond the clouds. Oh so high. Yes, he’s sailing, sailing in the sky. Wish I would have had a chance to say goodbye.
Yurgen
Just sailing, just sailing. I’m growing stronger every day.
Richard Orlinski
Positive sailing quotes
Find inspiration to pursue your dreams with positive attitude through these ten sailing quotes!
To desire and strive to be of some service to the world, to aim at doing something which shall really increase the happiness and welfare and virtue of mankind – this is a choice which is possible for all of us; and surely it is a good haven to sail for.
Henry Van Dyke
The goal is not to sail the boat, but rather to help the boat sail herself.
John Rousmaniere
Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
Augustus Hare
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
My soul is full of longing for the secret of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The ocean has always been a salve to my soul.
Jimmy Buffett
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
Helen Keller
The key to all strange things is in thy heart. My spirit has come home, that sailed the doubtful seas.
Countee Cullen
I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.
Jimmy Dean
When you can’t change the direction of the wind – adjust your sails.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Meaningful sailing quotes
I wanted freedom, open air and adventure. I found it on the sea.
Alain Gerbault
On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale.
Alexander Pope
Only the guy who isn’t rowing has time to rock the boat.
Jean–Paul Sartre
Whenever your preparations for the sea are poor; the sea worms its way in and finds the problems.
Francis Stokes
I must go down to the sea 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
It isn’t that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.
Francis Drake
And the winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
Edward Gibbon
Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, you will not know the terror of being forever lost at sea.
Charlie Cook
I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.
Louisa May Alcott
Being hove to in a long gale is the most boring way of being terrified I know.
Donald Hamilton
Conclusion
These sailing quotes above remind us of the power of nature and the importance of respecting the sea, as well as the courage and determination it takes to navigate the open ocean. They also capture the sense of new adventure and freedom, as well as the obstacles, challenges and dangers that sailors must face.
Whether you are an experienced sailor, a lover of the sea, or simply seeking inspiration, they can help you connect with the adventurous spirit and motivate you to taking risk. So, if you need inspiration and motivation to push beyond your limits or embrace the unknown, take a look again these sailing quotes.
Hope these quotes will resonate with you and inspire you to explore the world and challenge yourself. Whether on the open ocean or in your own life. Did you enjoy reading our collection of sailing quotes? If so, feel free to share this article with others who may be interested or need guidance.
Remember, life is a journey and the open ocean is waiting for you to experience its delights. So, set sail and start your voyage through life! Do your best, Captain…!