High Seas Quotes & Sayings

It has been said that the hardest job in the world is raising a child, but the people who says this have probably never worked at a comb factory or captured pirates on the high seas. — Lemony Snicket

Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold ... The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. In that realm a man may, perhaps, count himself fortunate to have wandered, but its very richness and strangeness tie the tongue of a traveller who would report them. And while he is there it is dangerous for him to ask too many questions, lest the gates should be shut and the keys be lost. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Rarely have I had the pleasure of reading such a riveting tale of adventure on the high seas. Cerulean Isle delivers page after page and seems to have it all, from bloodthirsty pirates to the mesmerizing 'Mermaidens' of the deep. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has even a passing interest in those bold adventurers of old who called the heaving deck of a ship their home and declared war on the world around them. — G.M. Browning

We should take mothers in high seas and drown them there, they are as poisonous as lead in the air. — Philip K. Dick

The United Nations World Charter for Nature, section 21, empowers any nongovernmental organisation or individual to uphold international conservation law in areas beyond national jurisdiction and specifically on the high seas. — Paul Watson

Peaches and Cheese:
The vagabond sun winks down through the trees,
While lilacs, like memories, waft on the breeze,
My friend, I was born for days such as these,
To inhale perfume,
And cut through the gloom,
And feast like a king upon peaches and cheese!
I'll travel this wide world and go where I please,
Can't stop my wand'ring, it's like a disease.
My only regret as I cross the high seas:
What I leave behind,
Though I hope to find,
My own golden city of peaches and cheese! — Rachel Hartman

There is a horrifying loneliness at work in this time. No, listen to me. We lived six and seven to a room in those days, when I was still among the living. The city streets were seas of humanity; and now in these high buildings dim-witted souls hover in luxurious privacy, gazing through the television window at a faraway world of kissing and touching. It is bound to produce some great fund of common knowledge, some new level of human awareness, a curious skepticism, to be so alone. — Anne Rice

Faith is a thing of the mind. If you do not believe that God is in control and has formed you for a purpose, then you will flounder on the high seas of purposelessness, drowning in the currents and drifting further into nothingness. — Ravi Zacharias

That knowledge humbles me, melts my bones, closes my ears, and makes my teeth rock loosely in their gums. And it also liberates me. I am a big bird winging over high mountains, down into serene valleys. I am ripples of waves on silver seas. I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation. — Maya Angelou

It so happened that I was on a German sailing vessel on the way to Australia when the ship was captured, and on the high seas I was made prisoner by the French. — Fritz Sauckel

Under star-dark seas and skies of gold
Live those Above and those Below
They sing and weep, both high and deep
While over and under the ocean rolls — Ally Condie

I love you, I know this must come as something of a surprise, since all I've ever done is scorn you and degrade you and taunt you, but I have loved you for several hours now, and every second, more. I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any woman has ever loved a man, but a half hour after that I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then. But ten minutes after that, I understood that my previous love was a puddle compared to the high seas before a storm. — William Goldman

I am a Magyr. I could crush your skull with my hands and drink this rat town under the table afterwards. And if I wanted to kill myself a passel of sailors, I'd bloody well do it with cannon, saber, and a fist in the teeth, not by batting my damn eyelashes. You'd be wise to remember it, Maggie, my love, and if we see a mermaid on our jaunt across the high seas, the best thing for all of us would be to let Sheapshank here put an arrow through her giggling head. — Catherynne M Valente

It is of no use mincing the matter; Dr John Marsh, after being regarded by his friends at home as hopelessly unimpressible - in short, an absolute woman-hater - had found his fate on a desolate isle of the Southern seas, he had fallen - nay, let us be just - had jumped over head and ears in love with Pauline Rigonda! Dr Marsh was no sentimental die-away noodle who, half-ashamed, half-proud of his condition, displays it to the semi-contemptuous world. No; after disbelieving for many years in the power of woman to subdue him, he suddenly and manfully gave in - sprang up high into the air, spiritually, and so to speak, turning a sharp somersault, went headlong down deep into the flood, without the slightest intention of ever again returning to the surface. — R.M. Ballantyne

I am the saint at prayer on the terrace like the peaceful beasts that graze down to the sea of Palestine.
I am the scholar of the dark armchair. Branches and rain hurl themselves at the windows of my library.
I am the pedestrian of the highroad by way of the dwarf woods; the roar of the sluices drowns my steps. I can see for a long time the melancholy wash of the setting sun.
I might well be the child abandoned on the jetty on its way to the high seas, the little farm boy following the lane, its forehead touching the sky.
The paths are rough. The hillocks are covered with broom. The air is motionless. How far away are the birds and the springs! It can only be the end of the world ahead. — Arthur Rimbaud

As far as I am concerned I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish to take my chances with wind, and wave, and star. And I had rather go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than rot in any orthodox harbor. — Robert G. Ingersoll

Perhaps there lives some dreamy boy, untaught
In schools, some graduate of the field or street,
Who shall become a master of art,
An admiral sailing the high seas of thought
Fearless and first, and steering with his fleet
For lands not yet laid down in any chart. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It was a cruben, the great one-horned scaled whale of Dara and sovereign of the seas: two hundred feet long and as large next to an elephant as an elephant would be next to a mouse. Its eyes were so dark that they sucked in all sunlight like deep wells, and when the great fish exhaled through its blowhole, the fountain shot as high as a hundred feet. — Ken Liu

When is there a boy, even in these materialistic times, to whom the call of the wild and the open road does not appeal? Maybe it is the primitive instinct, anyway it is there. With that key a great door may be unlocked, if it is only to admit fresh air and sunshine into lives that were otherwise grey.
The heroes of the wild, the frontiersmen and explorers, the rovers of the seas, the airmen of the clouds, are pied pipers to the boys. Where they lead the boys will follow and these will dance to their tune when it sings the song of manliness and pluck, of adventure and high endeavors of efficiency and skill, of cheerful sacrifice of self for others. There's meat in this for the boy. There's soul in it. — Baden-Powell Robert Baden-Powell

High over head they hoisted and fixed
a gold signum; gave him to the flood,
let the seas take him, with sour hearts
and mourning mood. Men under heaven's shifting skies, though skilled in counsel,
cannot say surely who unshipped that cargo. — Michael Alexander

I do not know beneath what sky nor on what seas shall be thy fate; I only know it shall be high, I only know it shall be great. — Richard Hovey

Plutarch taught me high thoughts; he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my own reflections, to admire and love the heroes of past ages. Many things I read surpassed my understanding and experience. I had a very confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide extents of country, mighty rivers, and boundless seas. This book developed new and mightier scenes of action. I read of men concerned in public affairs, governing or massacring their species. I felt the greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice. — Mary Shelley

I have vertigo. Vertigo makes it feel like the floor is pitching up and down. Things seem to be spinning. It's like standing on the deck of a ship in really high seas. — Laura Hillenbrand

There is no home left for universal souls, except perhaps in Antarctica or on the high seas. — J.M. Coetzee

We shall not read it for its sociological insights, which are non-existent, nor as science fiction, because it has a general air of implausibility; but there is one high poetic fancy in the New Atlantis that stays in the mind after all its fancies and inventions have been forgotten. In the New Atlantis, an island kingdom lying in very distant seas, the only commodity of external trade is light: Bacon's own special light, the light of understanding. — Peter Medawar

The high tide!" King Alfred cried.
"The high tide and the turn!
As a tide turns on the tall grey seas,
See how they waver in the trees,
How stray their spears, how knock their knees,
How wild their watchfires burn! — G.K. Chesterton

Flynn," Jeth hissed, crossing his arms. "This isn't the high seas. This is the middle of space. We don't have any lifeboats, and we don't need panic. We need solutions. — Mindee Arnett

Icelandic people are inbred. And they have a sense of themselves as genetically special, and a history of risk-taking because they make their living on the high seas fishing. Assets generally rose in value during this period, and so it looked like they actually knew what they were doing. — Michael Lewis

I look forward to seeing you in the "jungle" as our warriors meet and join the battle drum that calls for unity in the struggle for breaking the chains of modern slavery - like the butterflies flying the skies and the birds over the seas, all are welcomed for both ear and eye - promises of victory are high, for even if unattainable today, tomorrow still holds the torch and dream, like fire of paradise, glory of life, glory of eternity! — Martin Guevara Urbina

New York City is the most fatally fascinating thing in America. She sits like a great witch at the gate of the country, showing her alluring white face, and hiding her crooked hands and feet under the folds of her wide garments,
constantly enticing thousands from far within, and tempting those who come from across the seas to go no farther. And all these become the victims of her caprice. Some she at once crushes beneath her cruel feet; others she condemns to a fate like that of galley slaves; a few she favors and fondles, riding them high on the bubbles of fortune; then with a sudden breath she blows the bubbles out and laughs mockingly as she watches them fall. — James Weldon Johnson

He opened the door and led me through a corridor into a dark green lounge curiously paneled with pale green glass behind which, at cunningly measured distances, lay exquisitely painted panoramas of strange seas and beautiful landfalls. Standing in the center of the room, and slowly turning, a man might imagine that Satan had taken him to the top of a high mountain, and was showing him all the kingdoms of the earth... until he put out his hand to touch the middle distance, and felt a window, and saw through it to the heart of the illusion. — Gerald Kersh

I blaze with a deep sullen magic, smell lust like a heron on fire; all words I form into castles then storm them with soldiers of air. What I seek is not there for asking. My armies are fit and well trained. This poet will trust her battalions to fashion her words into blades. At dawn I shall ask them for beauty, for proof that their training went well. At night I shall beg their forgiveness as I cut their throats by the hill. My navies advance through the language, destroyers ablaze in high seas. I soften the island for landings. With words, I enlist a dark army. My poems are my war with the world. I blaze with a deep southern magic. The bombardiers taxi at noon. There is screaming and grief in the mansions and the moon is a heron on fire. — Pat Conroy

At Night on the High Seas
At night, when the sea cradles me
And the pale star gleam
Lies down on its broad waves,
Then I free myself wholly
From all activity and all the love
And stand silent and breathe purely,
Alone, alone cradled by the sea
That lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights.
Then I have to think of my friends
And my gaze sinks into their eyes,
And I ask each one, silent and alone:
"Are you still mine?
Is my sorrow a sorrow to you, my death a death?
Do you feel from my love, my grief,
Just a breath, just an echo?"
And the sea peacefully gazes back, silent,
And smiles: NO
And no greetings and no answers come from anywhere. — Hermann Hesse

A boat would seem to be an object whose one purpose is to travel, but its real purpose is not to travel but to reach harbour. We found ourselves on the high seas, with no idea of which port we should be aiming for. — Fernando Pessoa

I've climbed the high mountains an sailed the wide seas Fair faces a-plenty I've gazed on But with one glance, her beauty sent me to my knees, O hard-hearted Annie I never shall please. I've roved an I've rambled all o'er the wide world And kisses a-plenty I've tasted But it's her wine-sweet lips that I'm still dreaming of O hard-hearted Annie, cruel Annie my love. I've loved many women an wooed many girls And many soft arms have embraced me If only she'd lie with me one fleeting night With hard-hearted Annie I'd die of delight. Oh many fine beauties did beg me to stay But none until Annie did snare me Though she hurts me an shuns me an makes my heart bleed My hard-hearted Annie I never shall leave. I — Moira Young

How many times did the sun shine, how many times did the wind howl over the desolate tundras, over the bleak immensity of the Siberian taigas, over the brown deserts where the Earth's salt shines, over the high peaks capped with silver, over the shivering jungles, over the undulating forests of the tropics! Day after day, through infinite time, the scenery has changed in imperceptible features. Let us smile at the illusion of eternity that appears in these things, and while so many temporary aspects fade away, let us listen to the ancient hymn, the spectacular song of the seas, that has saluted so many chains rising to the light. — Emile Argand

In the height of the gusts, in my high position, where the seas did not break, I found myself compelled to cling tightly to the rail to escape being blown away. My face was stung to severe pain by the high-driving spindrift, and I had a feeling that the wind was blowing the cobwebs out of my sleep-starved brain. — Jack London

We have reached the time in the life of the planet, and humanity's demand upon it, when every fisherman will have to be a river-keeper, a steward of marine shallows, a watchman on the high seas. We are beyond having to put back what we have taken out. We must put back more than we take out. — Thomas McGuane

Going through the pass, which demands a sort of swastika maneuvering in order to debouch free and clear on the high plateau, I had the impression of wading through phantom seas of blood; the earth was not parched and convulsed in the usual Greek way but bleached and twisted as must have been the mangled, death-stilled limbs of the slain who were left to rot and give their blood here in the merciless sun to the roots of the wild olives which cling to the steep mountain slope with vulturous claws. — Henry Miller

You, sleeping on your bed of nails. Weeping an ocean beyond the pale. Strange, sorrow is your greatest skill. You're suffering from overkill ... Choose whether to laugh or to cry. Menace and promise mingle in your eye. Wait, it's only a matter of time. You know everything will be fine ... Rain falls down and the seas run high. When you're by my side we can rise above it. Let me dry all the tears inside. On your way you cannot hide from the howling wind and the roaring tide. You might get hurt but your fears will subside when you at last escape from the tears inside. — Tim Finn

Sweet it is, when on the high seas the winds are lashing the waters, to gaze from the land on another's struggles. — Lucretius

And he feels hurt when he hears about wars,
And commerce, and the ships leaving
Their smoke on the high seas.
Because he knows all of this lacks the truth
A flower has in its blooming
And which moves with the sunlight
Changing the hills and valleys — Alberto Caeiro

The legislator is like the navigator of a ship on the high seas. He can steer the vessel on which he sails, but he cannot alter its construction, raise the wind, or stop the waves from swelling beneath his feet. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Such fascinating things, libraries. She closes her eyes. She could
walk inside and step into a murder, a love story, a complete account
of somebody else's life, or mutiny on the high seas. Such potential;
such adventure - there's a shimmer of malfeasance in trying other
ways of being. — Ashley Hay

On a long sea voyage the rowers of Carib merchant canoes kept a small brazier of coals going amidships. Every 30 minutes or so, a small wad of tobacco leaves was placed on the brazier and, as the smoke began to rise, the rowers would put a forked nose pipe made from the breastbone of a seabird into the fumes and draw them in. After holding the smoke for awhile, a rower would exhale powerfully with a shout like high school players breaking a football huddle and then go back to the awesome task of single-handedly rowing a fully loaded commercial canoe over the open seas. — Bill Drake

My last picture for Warners was Romance on the High Seas. It was Doris Day's first picture; that was before she became a virgin. — Oscar Levant

Could you really catch me? (Serenity)
Absolutely. Besides, Barney would have my head if I let you make a mess on the deck. (Morgan)
Oh, thanks. I'm glad chivalry is alive and well on the high seas. (Serenity) — Kinley MacGregor

I have always felt I lived on the high seas, threatened, at the heart of a royal happiness. — Albert Camus

I felt the need to clarify we were there for the self defense class, in case he also taught about dog breeding or riding the high seas. — Richelle Mead

The eternal loves of the high seas ended when the port came in sight. — Gabriel Garcia Marquez

He touched me as if I were the curved and delicate handle of a china cup, but he held me tightly just as I was, flesh and blood and full of human flaws and fears. In his arms I wasn't a girl dreaming of sailing the high seas, and I wasn't a farm kid jumping the train, either, but a fully grown woman riding the soft side of a crescent moon. — Ann Howard Creel

When you are playing an egomaniac running a fantastical ship, you don't want him to be too suburban. Naturalism doesn't work on the high seas. — Geoffrey Rush

The written word is redundant on the high seas. Why? Because paper gets wet too easily. — Walter Moers

High Pasture
Come up
come up: in the dim vale below
The autumn mist muffles the fading trees,
But on this keen hill-pasture, though the breeze
Has stretched the thwart boughs bare to meet the snow,
Night is not, autumn is not
but the flow
Of vast, ethereal and irradiate seas,
Poured from the far world's flaming boundaries
In waxing tides of unimagined glow.
And to that height illumined of the mind
he calls us still by the familiar way,
Leaving the sodden tracks of life behind,
Befogged in failure, chilled with love's decay
Showing us, as the night-mists upward wind,
How on the heights is day and still more day. — Edith Wharton

If your mom asks you to do the dishes, do not pull out your pirate attitude. But if someone tells you you're not good enough, says your dreams are too lofty, or claims there is no room in showbiz for a dancing violinist - well then, by all means, pull out your eye patch, my friend, and take to the high seas. — Lindsey Stirling

Why spend your whole life on the high seas looking for treasure,' Peter asked, talking to the clouds as he scaled a rope up what remained of the half-crumbled mast, 'when you could have a promised pay check in exchange for all the life you'd live between nine-and-five. — Audrey Greathouse

No compass has ever been invented for the high seas of matrimony. — Heinrich Heine

Come live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
Of a marriage conducted with economy
In the Twentieth Century Anno Donomy.
We'll live in a dear little walk-up flat
With practically room to swing a cat
And a potted cactus to give it hauteur
And a bathtub equipped with dark brown water.
We'll eat, without undue discouragement,
Foods low in cost but high in nouragement
And quaff with pleasure, while chatting wittily,
The peculiar wine of Little Italy.
We'll remind each other it's smart to be thrifty
And buy our clothes for something-fifty.
We'll bus for miles on holidays
For seas at depressing matinees,
And every Sunday we'll have a lark
And take a walk in Central Park.
And one of these days not too remote
You'll probably up and cut my throat. — Ogden Nash

The flag that was the symbol of slavery on the high seas for a long time was not the Confederate battle flag, it was sadly the Stars and Stripes. — Alan Keyes

And truly he did well to trust in God, for though the felons mocked him when he said he had loved loyally, yet I call you to witness, my lords who read this, and who know of the philtre drunk upon the high seas, and who, understand whether his love were disloyalty indeed. For men see this and that outward thing, but God alone the heart, and in the heart alone is crime and the sole final judge is God. — Joseph Bedier

How dare you give the poor woman trouble over those nasty biscuits! If you made biscuits worth eating, sir, perhaps she wouldn't throw them to the fish!"
He blinked his eyes in astonishment. "Biscuits worth eating? I'll have you know, madam, that I bake the best biscuit on the high seas!"
"That's not saying much, considering that ship's biscuits are notoriously awful!"
"It's alright, Louisa, you needn't defend me - " Sara began.
Louisa just ignored her. "Those biscuits were so hard, I could scarcely choke them down. As for that stew - "
"Look here, you disrespectful harpy," the cook said, punctuating his words with loud taps of his cane. "There ain't nothin' wrong with Silas Drummond's stew, and I defy any man - or woman - to make a better one! — Sabrina Jeffries

When by the power of the heavens the whole world from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun shall be at one in peace, then so shall we all be at peace. You may believe that your country is far away, but not so far away that we cannot ride there. You may believe that your mountains are high beyond measure, but not so high that we cannot cross them. You may believe that the seas are vast, but not so broad that our ships cannot sail them. The gods who live in the heavens will make what was difficult easy, and what was far away, near. — Kate Elliott

But always beyond seas, and there was no body to be returned clumsily to earth, and so to her he seemed still to be laughing at that word as he had laughed at all other mouthsounds that stood for repose, who had not waited for Time and its furniture to teach him that the end of wisdom is to dream high enough not to lose the dream in the seeking of it.

Aunt Sally rocked steadily in her chair. — William Faulkner

The realm of fairy-story is wide and deep and high and filled with many things: all manner of beasts and birds are found there; shoreless seas and stars uncounted; beauty that is an enchantment, and an ever-present peril; both joy and sorrow as sharp as swords. — J.R.R. Tolkien

). Dozens of nations have agreed to join in monitoring and, if necessary, intercepting and boarding ships on the high seas in the event they are suspected of engaging in one or both of these threatening activities. — Frank Gaffney

The tradition of freedom of the high seas has its roots in an era when there were too few people to seriously violate the oceans - but in hindsight that era ended some 150 years ago. — James Carlton

Take a factory, a railway, a ship on the high seas, is it not clear that not one of these complex technical establishments, based on the use of machinery and the systematic co-operation of many people, could function without a certain amount of subordination and, consequently, without a certain amount of authority or power? — Frederick Engels

But it was not what I wanted to do! I wanted to star in a silent movie and vamp the sheik, take a trip to the South Seas ... walk naked in the sand and surf ... write a novel about it. Be the Empress of the Galaxy, be discovered by a hero that would ravish me, and take me away on high adventure! Take a interminable motor home trip across the US and find out how the past had become the present. Journey to Europe, speak flawless French, and become the courtesan in the country chalet where all the real people came to party." She laughed again. "Mostly I did not want be confined to routine ... endless routine. — William C. Samples

If the behaviour of babies and small children is any guide, we emerge into the world with our tendencies to imbalance already well entrenched. In our playpens and high chairs, we are rarely far from displaying either hysterical happiness or savage disappointment, love or rage, mania or exhaustion
and, despite the growth of a more temperate exterior in adulthood, we seldom succeed in laying claim to lasting equilibrium, traversing our lives like stubbornly listing ships on choppy seas. — Alain De Botton

Holland is a dream, Monsieur, a dream of gold and smoke-smokier by day, more gilded by night. And night and day that dream is peopled with Lohengrins like these, dreamily riding their black bicycles with high handle-bars, funereal swans constantly drifting throughout the whole country, around the seas, along the canals. — Albert Camus

When handled in a civilized fashion, Piracy on the high seas could become more of a wise business decision than of a sheer, chaotic, unorganized criminal act. And I saw very little difference in what we were doing than the royals and courtiers were doing in the midst of cities, and of calling what they were doing legal and legitimate. — Ted Anthony Roberts

In high seas or in low seas, I'm gonna be your friend ... I'm gonna be your friend. In high tide or in low tide, I'll be by your side ... I'll be by your side. — Bob Marley