Ship Life Quotes & Sayings

EVERYONE JOINS A BAND IN THIS LIFE. You are born into your first one. Your mother plays the lead. She shares the stage with your father and siblings. Or perhaps your father is absent, an empty stool under a spotlight. But he is still a founding member, and if he surfaces one day, you will have to make room for him. As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army. Maybe you will all dress the same, or laugh at your own private vocabulary. Maybe you will flop on couches backstage, or share a boardroom table, or crowd around a galley inside a ship. But in each band you join, you will play a distinct part, and it will affect you as much as you affect it. And, as is usually the fate with bands, most of them will break up - through distance, differences, divorce, or death. — Mitch Albom

I was not sure where I was going, and I could not see what I would do when I got [there]. But you saw further and clearer than I, and you opened the seas before my ship, whose track led me across the waters to a place I had never dreamed of, and which you were even then preparing to be my rescue and my shelter and my home. — Thomas Merton

I click on the deaths and read the names carefully, memorising them. Because here's the simple truth - if I hadn't taken the ship off Phydus, people like ***** and ******* would still be alive. And while I could say that a shorter life with feelings is better than a longer life without, the dead can't tell me their side. [p.88] — Beth Revis

In this world we're all travelers on the same ship that has set sail from one unknown port en route to another equally foreign to us; we should treat each other therefore with the friendliness due to fellow travelers. — Fernando Pessoa

I will not close my eyes, neither those in my head nor those in my soul, as the ship carries me away, along with my future, my dreams, and my beliefs. Buru Island is no happy land somewhere; it's but a way station on my journey in life - though to believe even that much will require no small measure of hope. — Pramoedya Ananta Toer

So I come back again to the condition that the Golden Rule, if one adopts it, is a difficult master to serve. The ship's captain will not throw the compass overboard because the wind blows fair and the day is funny. For he knows, from the experiences of the ocean's instability, that the danger days of storm are always "just ahead." So the compass must always be handy and obedience to it must always be loyal. And so with the Golden Rulle - the compass must be ever at hand through life's journey. It will see us through trying times. And perhaps the most trying of all times comes when success is riding high and we may be tempted to "throw the compass overboard." It is then we must remember that all good days in human life come from the mastery of the days of trouble that are forever recurrent. — James Cash Penney

The ship is always off course. Anybody who sails knows that. Sailing is being off course and correcting. That gives a sense of what life is about. — Michael Meade

She found out that having something to do prevented you from feeling seasick, and that even a job like scrubbing a deck could be satisfying, if it was done in a seamanlike way. She was very taken with this notion, and later on she folded the blankets on her bunk in a seamanlike way, and put her possessions in the closet in a seamanlike way, and used 'stow' instead of 'tidy' for the process of doing so. After two days at sea, Lyra decided that this was the life for her. — Philip Pullman

Let our virtuous deeds, keep us afloat as a well maintained ship and safely, cross this ocean of worldly life. — Rajen Jani

The Christian life is the lifelong practice of attending to the details of congruence - congruence between ends and means, congruence between what we do and the way we do it, congruence between what is written in Scripture and our living out what is written, congruence between a ship and its prow, congruence between preaching and living, congruence between the sermon and what is lived in both preacher and congregation, the congruence of the Word made flesh in Jesus with what is lived in our flesh. — Eugene H. Peterson

It is a great doctor for sore hearts and sore heads, too, your ship's routine, which I have seen soothe - at least for a time - the most turbulent of spirits. There is health in it, and peace, and satisfaction of the accomplished round; for each day of the ship's life seems to close a circle within the wide ring of the sea horizon. It borrows a certain dignity of sameness from the majestic monotony of the sea. He who loves the sea loves also the ship's routine. — Joseph Conrad

Consider when, on a voyage, your ship is anchored; if you go on shore to get water you may along the way amuse yourself with picking up a shellish, or an onion. However, your thoughts and continual attention ought to be bent towards the ship, waiting for the captain to call on board; you must then immediately leave all these things, otherwise you will be thrown into the ship, bound neck and feet like a sheep. So it is with life. If, instead of an onion or a shellfish, you are given a wife or child, that is fine. But if the captain calls, you must run to the ship, leaving them, and regarding none of them. But if you are old, never go far from the ship: lest, when you are called, you should be unable to come in time. — Epictetus

In the end, it was such a simple, small thing. He had felt flashes of it before in his life, the absolute certainty. But the truth was that he'd kept walking away from it. It was a far more terrifying idea to imagine how much control he really had over how his life turned out. Easier to believe that he was a gallant ship tossed by fate than to captain it himself. — Maggie Stiefvater

His style has the desperate jauntiness of an orchestra fiddling away for dear life on a sinking ship. — Edmund Wilson

When you're whirling free of the mother ship, when you cut your ropes, slip your chain, step off the map, go absent without leave, scram, vamoose, whatever; suppose that it's then, and only then, that you're actually free to act! To lead the life nobody tells you how to live, or when, or why. In which nobody orders you to go forth and die for them, or for god, or comes to get you because you broke one of the rules, or because you're one of the people who are, for reasons which unfortunately you can't be given, simply not allowed. Suppose you've got to go through the feeling of being lost, into the chaos and beyond; you've got to accept the loneliness, the wild panic of losing your moorings, the vertiginous terror of the horizon spinning round and round like the edge of a coin tossed in the air. — Salman Rushdie

Men in public life did their best to avoid accidental events or actions from being seen as unlucky. On a famous occasion during the civil war, Caesar tripped when disembarking from a ship on the shores of Africa and fell flat on his face. With his talent for improvisation, he spread out his arms and embraced the earth as a symbol of conquest. By quick thinking he turned a terrible omen of failure into one of victory. — Anthony Everitt

And if you've ever grown up with dreams in your head about life, and how one of these days you would pirate your own ship and have your own crew and that all of the mermaids
would love
only
you?
Well, you would realize ...
Like I eventually realized ...
That all the good things about her?
All the beautiful?
It's not real.
It's fake.
So you keep your ocean,
I'll take the Lake. — Colleen Hoover

Every man beholds his human condition with a degree of melancholy. As a ship aground is battered by the waves, so man, imprisonedin mortal life, lies open to the mercy of coming events. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Church is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life's different stresses. Our duty is not to abandon ship, but to keep her on her course. — Saint Boniface

I'll go to another country, go to another shore,
find another city better than this one.
Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong
and my heart -like something dead- lies buried.
How long can I let my mind moulder in this place?
Wherever I turn, wherever I look,
I see the black ruins of my life, here,
where I've spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.
You won't find a new country, won't find another shore.
This city will always pursue you.
You'll walk the same streets, grow old
in the same neighbourhoods, turn grey in these same houses.
You'll always end up in this city. Don't hope for things elsewhere:
there's no ship for you, there's no road.
Now that you've wasted your life here, in this small corner,
you've destroyed it everywhere in the world. — Constantine P. Cavafy

When something feels really big, too big to handle, just go very small. Just go real small, just look at the person next to you and look in their eyes and meet the person next to you, find out their name, change one person's life and make one call, write one letter, give one dollar. Whatever small thing feels like what you can do - it changes the course of the ship and that is all it is. — Amy Poehler

Solitude is one thing and being alone is another. Solitude can be isolation, an escape, an unwanted thing; but to be alone without the burden of life, with that utter freedom in which time/thought has never been, is to be with the universe. In solitude there is despairing loneliness, a sense of being abandoned, lost, craving for some kind of relationship, like a ship lost at sea. All our daily activity leads to this isolation, with its endless conflicts and miseries, and rare joys thrown in. This isolation is corruption, manifested in politics, in business and of course in organized religions. Corruption exists in the very high places and on the very doorstep. To be tied is corruption; any form of attachment leads to it, whether it be to a belief, faith, ideal, experience, or any conclusion. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

What did it clarify for you?" Pinky asked.
Mrs. Brown laughed. "Told me to keep doing and saying what I dam well please, and not be bamboozled by anyone. Life is too short - no mulling things over for a dozen years or so. What about you?"
"I wasn't on the ship — Kate Alcott

We're brought up to expect a happy ending. But there are no happy endings. There's only death waiting for us. We find love and happiness, and it's snatched away from us without rhyme or reason. We're on a deserted space ship careening mindlessly among the stars. The world is Dachau, and we're all Jews. — Sidney Sheldon

Not all of us receive the ends that we deserve. Many moments that change a life's course - a conversation with a stranger on a ship, for example - are pure luck. And yet no one writes you a letter, or chooses you as their confessor, without good reason. This is what she taught me: you have to be ready in order to be lucky. You have to put your pieces into play. — Jessie Burton

Woe is me! Bitter is me! For what is my life? Why didn't the ship go under and drown me before I came to America? — Anzia Yezierska

A life path may change because of important decisions or events. Those were what drove my current path.
But sometimes the smallest event can also drive a turn. In the case of Eli Vanto, that force was a single, overheard word.
Chiss. Where had Cadet Vanto heard that name? What did it mean to him? He had already spoken one reason, but there might well be others. Indeed, the full truth might have several layers. But what were they?
On a ship as large as this, there was only one practical way to find out.
Thus did my path take yet another turn. As, certainly, did his. — Timothy Zahn

Percy smiled. He knew the stakes were high. He knew this day could go horribly wrong. But he also knew that Annabeth was on that ship.If things went right, this would be the best day of his life.
He threw one arm around Hazel and one arm around Frank.
"Come on," he said. "Let me introduce you to my other family. — Rick Riordan

Why did she want to go to sea and live the rough unglamorous life of a seaman? 'Because they told me Negro women couldn't get in the union. You know what I told them?' I shook my head, although I nearly knew. 'I told them, "You want to bet?" I'll put my foot in that door up to my hip until women of every color can walk over my foot, get in that union, get aboard a ship and go to sea. — Maya Angelou

Probably Verrari," muttered the senior, who was methodically torturing a piece of ivory with a slender carving knife. He wanted it to come out like a sculpted terrace he'd seen at the Temple of Iono, alive with lovely relief and fantastical representations of drowned men taken by the Lord of the Grasping Waters. What he seemed to be producing more closely resembled a lump of white dogshit, life-size. "Sooner trust a sailing ship to a blind drunkard with no hands than a Verrari. — Scott Lynch

When Christ came into my life, I came about like a well-handled ship. — Robert Louis Stevenson

"If you are loyal you are successful," ruminated the company paper at one time. "All useful work is raised to the plane of art when love for the task-loyalty-is fused with the effort. Loyalty is the great lubricant of life. It saves the wear and tear of making daily decisions as to what is best to do. The man who is loyal to his work is not wrung nor perplexed by doubts, he sticks to the ship, and if the ship founders he goes down like a hero with colors flying at the masthead and the band playing." — Thomas Watson

Take the sailor," he said. "he signs on to a new ship. He's surrounded by nothing but strangers. Not only do they come from other towns and parts of his own country, but often from completely different nations. He has to learn to work with them. His vocabulary's broadened, he learns new words and grammar, and he comes across new ways of thinking. he turns into a different man, unlike the one who spends his life plowing the same old furrow. These are the men the world needs, not nationalists and warmongers. — Carsten Jensen

Many wild foods have their charms, but the dearest one to my heart - my favorite fruit in the whole world - is the thimbleberry. Imagine the sweetest strawberry you've ever tasted, crossed with the tartest raspberry you've ever eaten. Give in the texture of silk velvet and make it melt to sweet juice the moment it hints your tongue. Shape it like the age-old sewing accessory that gives the fruit its name, and make it just big enough to cup a dainty fingertip. That delicious jewel of a fruit is a thimbleberry. They're too fragile to ship and too perishable to store, so they are one of those few precious things in life that can't be commoditized, and for me they always symbolize the essence of grabbing joy while I can. When it rains in thimbleberry season, the delicate berries get so damp that even the gentlest pressure crushes them, so instead of bringing them home as mush, I lick each one of my fingers as soon as it is picked. These sweet berries are treasure beyond price... — Sarah A. Chrisman

When I was very young, one of my favourite books was Captain's Courageous and I suppose one of the reasons I loved it, it was a life I knew I should have had, learning all the different bits of the ship and learning to catch fish and rig sails and to -all the things that I never learned and I never learned the discipline, but I hungered after it. — Clive James

I thought that, given the system of rewards central to our economic system, in which profit maximization is valued above all else and specifically above life, it is probably just as irresistible to the owners of capital (human or otherwise) to exploit workers (and the land): "Nothing personal," they say as they load their property onto the ship bound for the Middle Passage, "but a man's gotta turn a dime. — Derrick Jensen

And what he contemplated was death. Some people complained when death came top early and claimed a child, a young mother, or a sailor with a family to provide for. He'd never understood that. Of course, it was a tragedy for those left behind and for the person who'd been robbed of the greater part of life. But it wasn't unfair. Death was beyond such notions. It seemed to him that the bereaved often forgot their grief at a death in favor of railing fruitlessly against life's injustices. After all, no one would dream of saying that the wind was unfair to the trees and the flowers. True, you might feel uneasy when the sun switched off its light, or ice gave your ship a dangerous list. But indignant, outraged, or angry, no. It was pointless. Nature was neither fair nor unfair. Those terms belonged to the world of men. — Carsten Jensen

they ask for water we give them sea
they ask for bread we give them sea
they ask for life we give them only the sea — M. NourbeSe Philip

Oh, I can think of many reasons. Perhaps it's a signal, so that any strange ship entering our universe will know where to look for life. Perhaps it marks the centre of galactic administration. Or perhaps - and somehow I feel that this is the real explanation - it's simply the greatest of all works of art. But it's foolish to speculate now. In a few hours we shall know the truth. — Arthur C. Clarke

We must develop a deeper interest and greater understanding of the people we meet here or abroad. Like us, they are passengers on board that mysterious ship called life. — Ella Maillart

While you live your life aboard the ship of life be aware of the sea of life on which it floats and on which it moves forward; be aware of the prevailing winds and currents that influence your progress as the master of the ship. — Ian Gardner

For the real movements of a life are gradual, then sudden; they resist becoming anecdotes, they pulse like quasars from long-dead stars to reach the vivid planet of the present, they drift like fog over the ship until the spread sails are merely panels of gray in grayer air and surround becomes object, as in those perceptual tests where figure and ground reverse, the kissing couple in profile turn into the outlines of the mortuary urn that holds their own ashes. Time wears down resolve
then suddenly violence, something irrevocable flashes out of nowhere, there are thrashing fins and roiled, blood-streaked water, death floats up on its side, eyes bulging. — Edmund White

I am most grateful for company this evening, even of the quiet variety. I am no great conversationalist, myself."
Gray snorted. Not a conversationalist. The girl had coaxed the life story out of every sailor in this ship.
She had just picked up her spoon again when Joss spoke.
"You do not find the voyage too tedious, Miss Turner?" Joss asked. "I regret that you are left to entertain yourself, being the sole passenger."
She laid down her spoon. "Thank you, Captain, but I find sufficient activity to occupy my hands and my mind. Reading, sketching, walking the deck for fresh air and healthful exertion. I'm surprisingly content, living at sea."
Gray's heart gave an odd kick. — Tessa Dare

People used to show me respect, to bow down to me; time has passed; I see no more of this. I have known gladness and sorrow, I have rejoiced and I have wept; the same happens to me now but, as the days go by, sorrow and gladness, joy and tears go with them. I have been praised and exalted, I have been criticized and abused; the same who praised me, have cursed; and those who abused have turned to praise me ... such is human constantly! Poor is man from his mother's womb to his grave. Born with a cry, he lives, tossed up and down as a ship on a sea, and dies with tears. — Tikhon Of Zadonsk

I am a sailor, you're my first mate
We signed on together, we coupled our fate
Hauled up our anchor, determined not to fail
For the heart's treasure, together we set sail
With no maps to guide us, we steered our own course
Rode out the storms when the winds were gale force
Sat out the doldrums in patience and hope
Working together, we learned how to cope.
Life is an ocean and love it a boat
In troubled waters it keeps us afloat
When we started the voyage there was just me and you
Now gathered round us we have our own crew
Together we're in this relationship
We built it with care to last the whole trip
Our true destination's not marked on any chart
We're navigating the shores of the heart — John McDermott

These Reformation wars involved the biggest population movements in Europe between the 'barbarian' upheavals which dismantled the western Roman Empire and the twentieth century's First and Second World Wars. Hundreds of thousands of people decided to follow the example of the English, quit Europe and brave the terrors of the Atlantic to find a new life in north America. As early as 1662 some of the Duke of Savoy's Waldensian victims in the Alpine valleys took ship for a sympathetic Dutch Reformed colony; they found a new safe home on Stateri Island, amid the great natural haven which would become New York.3 — Diarmaid MacCulloch

Emperor of Mars: We should be rid of the Earthling now.

Count Rochefort: Was your daughter on the ship?

Emperor of Mars: Yes.

Emperor of Mars: Life is sad. — Jason

In the way such things happen in real life, I suspect I'll never see him again. We talked about that once. There was a term in Japanese, he said. Eng. It was both a concept and a word of advice. It meant that anyone you meet may be the most important person in your life. Therefore, that every stranger should be treated as a friend. Loved before it is too late. You never know (he said) in which night your ship is passing. — Tobias Hill

Take the time to make some sense for what you wanna say,
And cast your words away upon the waves.
Sail them home with acquiesce on a ship of hope today,
And as they land upon the shore,
Tell them not to fear no more.
I'm not saying right is wrong,
It's up to us to make the best of all the things that come our way.
Cos' everything that's been has past,
The answers in the looking glass.
There's four and twenty million doors
On life's endless corridor,
So say it loud and sing it proud today. — Noel Gallagher

Time that is moved by little fidget wheels Is not myTime, the flood that does not flow. Between the double and the single bell Of a ship's hour, between a round of bells From the dark warship riding there below, I have lived many lives, and this one life Of Joe, long dead, who lives between five bells. — Adam Skirving

[ Serialism ] is like a sailless ship, driven out to sea by its captain, who has grown tired of its being used only as a pontoon, and who is privately convinced that by subjecting life aboard to the rules of an elaborate protocol, he will prevent the crew from thinking nostalgically either of their home port or of their ultimate destination ... — Claude Levi-Strauss

People love their causes they champion; they love their divisions and neatly packaged boxes of identity; for without them, they would be forced to look within, find themselves, set aside pettiness and face reality (that's quite frightening to most). As a result, they are like a lost ship at sea, forced to submit to the waves of society. — Dara Reidyr

MAY 31 The Power of Your Words Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. PROVERBS 18:21 NASB OUR WORDS have tremendous power and are similar to seeds. By speaking them aloud, they are planted in our subconscious minds, take root, grow, and produce fruit of the same kind. Whether we speak positive or negative words, we will reap exactly what we sow. That's why we need to be extremely careful what we think and say. The Bible compares the tongue to the small rudder of a huge ship, which controls the ship's direction (see James 3:4). Similarly, your tongue will control the direction of your life. You create an environment for either good or evil with your words, and if you're always murmuring, complaining, and talking about how bad life is treating you, you're going to live in a pretty miserable world. Use your words to change your negative situations and fill them with life. — Joel Osteen

Love is the Turing test, says Ilet when she is eighty and drawing up the plans for a massive, luminous, lonely ship she will never see completed. It is how we check for life. We ask and we answer. We seek a human response. And you are my test, Elefsis, says Neva, one hundred and three years later, inside that ship, twelve light years from home and counting. — Catherynne M Valente

I am abandoned on the ship of life." "I know." "Jas, you are not really cheering me up." "Well, I know and that is because there is really nothing to be cheerful about; I would hate to be you." in — Louise Rennison

I will only ask you to believe one thing. I have faith in myself. I believe that I am the man to guide England through the days of crisis that I see coming. If I did not honestly believe that I am needed by my country to steer the ship of state, I would not have done what I have done--made the best of both worlds--saved myself from disaster by a clever trick.'

'My lord, if you could not make the best of both worlds, you could not be a politician. — Agatha Christie

And yet, just as our body would burst asunder if the pressure of the atmosphere were removed from it, so would the arrogance of men expand, if not to the point of bursting then to that of the most unbridled folly, indeed madness, if the pressure of want, toil, calamity and frustration were removed from their life. One can even say that we require at all times a certain quantity of care or sorrow or want, as a ship requires ballast, in order to keep on a straight course. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Even in dying, a Thennanin ship was reputed to be not worth putting out of its misery. In battle they were slow, unmaneuverable - and as hard to disable permanently as a cockroach. — David Brin

I once had a young musician come to me and say that he wanted to be a professional musician. I asked him to write his list. When he came back to me, the three things in his life he most wanted were: to be paid for his music; to travel around the world; to meet new people. We came to the decision, after thinking really creatively, that if he got a job on a cruise ship, he would fulfill those goals. — Phil Keoghan

Every experience is a gift and happens for a reason. No matter how big or small, we are reminded that we are the captains of our ship. — Alexz Johnson

The king as the father or midwife, taking care of children. This made real families less necessary. Everyone was equal with one another and all were citizens of the state. The state protected as many aspects of life as was possible, from the wages of the workers to the welfare of those who could not work. It took the pressure off immediate families to shoulder each other's burdens. The king would take care of them. They would simply ship their aged and infirm off to government communes, so they could get back to maximizing their service for the collective. — Brian Godawa

If a pastor's activity in the church is merely a once-a-week attempt to tow the congregation's cargo ship a little closer to eternity, the whole thing comes to nothing. A human life, unlike a cargo ship, cannot lie in the same place until the next Sunday. — Soren Kierkegaard

My fear of life is necessary to me, as is my illness. Without anxiety and illness, I am a ship without a rudder. My art is grounded in reflections over being different from others. My sufferings are part of my self and my art. They are indistinguishable from me, and their destruction would destroy my art. I want to keep those sufferings — Edvard Munch

Like the vital rudder of a ship, we have been provided a way to determine the direction we travel. The lighthouse of the Lord beckons to all as we sail the seas of life. Our home port is the celestial kingdom of God. Our purpose is to steer an undeviating course in that direction. A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder - never likely to reach home port. To us comes the signal: Chart your course, set your sail, position your rudder, and proceed. — Thomas S. Monson

I God, a very Gomorry on wheels! You lead the most exciting life I know of, and complain more about it than any two well-off bastards in the running. I am glad to hear you sound like your old self, though I never hearn of no Jonathan with two Davids.
Top of this letter is an allusion to that wonderful novel, The SotWeed Factor, in which Ebenezer Cooke, "poet and virgin," is about to be raped by a buncher sailors (they have him tied across a table in the fo'c'sle; he is saved by a raiding party of pirates, one of whom strides into the scene and says, "I God, this here ship's a very floatin' Gomorry!"
Have come down with the flu since inditing the above. [ ... ]. The mail yestiddy brought a letter from Sam Beckett! asked to see Sappho and Arky. I sag with fatigue. Blessings.
Guy — Guy Davenport

A perfect life is like that of a ship of war which has its own place in the fleet and can share in its strength and discipline, but can also go forth alone in the solitude of the infinite sea. We ought to belong to society, to have our place in it, and yet be capable of a complete individual existence outside of it. — Philip Gilbert Hamerton

Nine times out of ten, failure is resorting to Plan B when Plan A gets too risky, too costly, or too difficult. That's why most people are living their Plan B. They didn't burn the ships. Plan A people don't have a Plan B...

There are moments in life when we need to burn the ships to our past. We do so by making a defining decision that will eliminate the possibility of sailing back to the old world we left behind. You burn the ships named Past Failure and Past Success. You burn the ship named Bad Habit. You burn the ship named Regret. You burn the ship named Guilt. You burn the ship named My Old Way of Life. — Mark Batterson

There is this blessing, that while life has but one entrance, it has exits innumerable, and as I choose the house in which I live, the ship in which I will sail, so will I choose the time and manner of my death. — Seneca The Younger

The two most beautiful sights I have witnessed in my life are a full blown ship at sail and the round-bellied pregnant female. — Benjamin Franklin

When a brother is given the right to pass into the third life as a father, then he chooses his greatest rival or his truest friend to give him passage. You. Speaker - ever since I first learned Stark and read The Hive Queen and the Hegemon, I waited for you. I said many times to my father, Rooter, of all humans he is the one who will understand us. Then Rooter told me when your starship came, that it was you and the hive queen aboard that ship, and I knew then that you had come to give me passage, if only I did well."
"You did well, Human. — Orson Scott Card

Without love our life is ... a ship without a rudder ... like a body without a soul. — Sholom Aleichem

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

We're all the same. We all want the same thing in life. Everybody going around like they know how to sail but there is no captain and we are all only passengers aboard the same sinking ship. — Donal O'Callaghan

This is the first time I have heard 'ethics' in the mouth of a man. You and I are the only men on this ship that know its meaning. At one time in my life, I dreamed that I might someday talk with men who used such language, that I might lift myself out of the place in life in which I had been born, and hold conversation and mingle with men who talked about just such things as ethics. — Jack London

When we pillow our heads at night, we need to have things that give us peace. Many such things are available, but one of the best is the simple peace of knowing that we've done things that day that were not easy for us to do. If we can see ourselves as people who are learning little by little to master the hard parts of life, we will live with a greater confidence and be able to serve those around us more helpfully. The ancient adage is true which tells us, A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. — Gary Henry

That was before I'd started thinking about how life stuck on a ship wouldn't be so bad if Elder walked around pantless more. — Beth Revis

Had I been too selfish? I had never known my mother, but I knew my life as it had been without her: the ship, the sea, the myths, the maps . . . and, yes, Kashmir. The pain I felt at the thought of losing him - the same pain that kept me at arm's length - gave me a hint of my father's own struggle. — Heidi Heilig

3,2,1 ... Launch! A lot of preparation goes into launching a rocket ship. No short cuts or cheating will get that rocket to its destination. A lot of hard work and dedication goes into every launch. What are you doing to launch? Are you doing the proper work needed? Are you dedicated? — Robert D. Kintigh

Every human cell, with its thousands of protein chains, is more complex than a 747 or the largest cruise ship, in fact more complex than the two combined. All life on Earth, in its extravagant variety, offers itself for study, but though we probe to ever deeper layers of its structure, the meaning eludes us. — Dean Koontz

We, the survivors of the crossing, clung to the beast that had stolen us away. Not a soul among us had wanted to baord that ship, but once out on open waters, we held on for dear life. The ship became an extension of our own rotting bodies. Those who were cut from the heaving animal sank quick to their deaths, and we who remained attached wilted more slow as poison festered in our bellies and bowels. We stayed with the beast until new lands met our feet, and we stumbled down the long plants just before the poison became fatal. Perhaps here in this new land, we would keep living. — Lawrence Hill

Pirate Hunters is a fantastic book, an utterly engrossing and satisfying read. It tells the story of the hunt for the rare wreck of a pirate ship, which had been captained by one of the most remarkable pirates in history. This is a real-life Treasure Island, complete with swashbuckling, half-crazy treasure hunters and vivid Caribbean settings-a story for the ages. — Douglas Preston

We were fortunate his brief psychic vision distracted him from what his fingertips could have told him about my face.
Of course we were aware that temporary clairvoyance was a lame and unlikely explanation. The ordering of this world, however is so abstruce, so deep and complex, most explanations that people to make sense of moments of strange experience are inadequate. Our very existence as thinking creatures is an astonishment that cant be solved. Every human cell, with its thousands of protein chains, is more complex than a 747 or the largest cruise ship, in fact more complex than the two combined. All life on earth, in its extravagant variety, offers itself for study, but though we probe to ever deeper layers of its structure, the meaning eludes us.
There is no end of wonders and mysteries: fireflies and music boxes, the stars that outnumber all the grains of sand on all the beaches of the world. — Dean Koontz

My fucking ship just blew up, I'm stuck in a tiny life pod with Emma and you, which means - " Mikhail's expression brightened, and he interrupted. "It means threesomes are possible so long as our junks don't touch, because I don't know if the fact that I'm your twin makes it masturbation or just really weird." That — Eve Langlais

His reading suggested a man swimming in the sea among the wreckage of his ship, and trying to save his life by greedily clutching first at one spar and then at another. — Anton Chekhov

Every ship sailing the sea of life needs to have the divine Pilot on board; but when storms arise, when tempests threaten, many persons push their Pilot overboard, and commit their bark into the hand of finite man, or try to steer it themselves. — Ellen G. White

We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope. — Epictetus

You must dedicate your whole life to this idea: you are the caretaker of every single person on this ship. They are your responsibility.
You can never show weakness in front of them: you are their strength.
You can never let them see you in despair: you are their hope.
You must always be everything to everyone on board. — Beth Revis

There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinner - for all your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable. (Moby Dick chap 35 p 153) — Herman Melville

Never had I understood that I command, with absolute authority, the ship of my life! I decide its mission and rules and discipline, at my word waits every tool and sail, every cannon, the strength of every soul on board. I'm master of a team of passionate skills to sail me through hell's own jaws the second I nod the direction to steer. — Richard Bach

Your ship was spotted off the coast this morning, slipping silently through the fog ... coming around the cape she appeared in a shaft of sunlight ... and what a sight to see! Glimmering as much as the ocean herself. Massive and beautiful beyond belief! Laden with treasures, happy times, friends, love, and laughter. Quick, you must PREPARE for her docking ... you MUST make space in your life for her gifts ... otherwise, just as quickly, she'll quietly slip back out to sea. — Mike Dooley

Ready over there, Goblin?" I ask Sevro over the com. "Cacatne ursus in silvis?" Does a bear shit in the woods? The ship spins and shudders. More sirens howl. "Latin, now?" "Audentes fortuna juvat," Sevro chuckles. "Fortune favors the bold? You deserve to die if that's really going to be the last thing you say in this life." "Yes? Well, you may suck my - " My — Pierce Brown

A life without an objective is much like a ship at sea with no port in mind. It drifts with the waves or storms, or with the whim of the captain. They are tempted to ask, amidst the battles of life, "Is the struggle worth-while?" That attitude lessens the joy of living. They who say that there is no purpose in life are not unhappy, but become dangerous to themselves and others, for they have no safe guide for their actions. Indeed, life has not objective save physical satisfactions, it is empty and valueless. — John Andreas Widtsoe

I would like to forget the image of the ship's crane at Southampton docks when it lifted into the sky the three wooden trunks which held all that my family owned. There is only one memory I want to preserve. It is Maria, who is also Zama, sipping condensed milk on the steps of the doep at night. The African nights were warm. The stars were bright. I loved Maria but I'm not sure she loved me back. Politics and poverty had separated her from her own children and she was exhausted by the white children in her care, by everyone and everything in her care. At the end of the day, away from the people who stole her life's energy and made her tired, she had found a place to rest, momentarily, from myths about her character and her purpose in life." (from "Things I Don't Want to Know" by Deborah Levy) — Deborah Levy

The quotidian demands of life distract from this resonance of images and events, but some of us feel it always. And who among us, offered the chance, would not relive the day or hour in which we first knew love, or ecstasy, or made a choice that forever altered our future, negating a life we might have had? Such chances are rarely granted. Memory and grief prove Faulkner right enough, but Einstein knew the finality of action. If I cannot change what I had for lunch yesterday, I certainly cannot unmake a marriage, erase the betrayal of a friend, or board a ship that left port twenty years ago. And — Greg Iles

Like the Baron, Mathilde developed a formula for acting out life as a series of roles - that is, by saying to herself in the morning while brushing her blond hair, "Today I want to become this or that person," and then proceeding to be that person.
One day she decided she would like to be an elegant representative of a well-known Parisian modiste and go to Peru. All she had to do was to act the role. So she dressed with care, presented herself with extraordinary assurance at the house of the modiste, was engaged to be her representative and given a boat ticket to Lima.
Aboard ship, she behaved like a French missionary of elegance. Her innate talent for recognizing good wines, good perfumes, good dressmaking, marked her as a lady of refinement. — Anais Nin

The matron glanced at the old man and suppressed a smile. "He is absolutely miserable."
"I enjoy miserable. It gives one a contrast to all the delectabilities of life. But is he housebroken, inpala? He is rather rumpled. He will look well on my ship, but will he wash well? Do professors fray as a general rule? I will not have my ship looking ragged."
"They do tend to fade after a few years of hard use. — Michelle Franklin

There was a Japanese TV set in front of us. There were Japanese TV sets all over the prison. They were like portholes on an ocean liner. The passengers were in a state of suspended animation until the big ship got where it was going. But anytime they wanted, the passengers could look through a porthole and see the real world out there.
Life was like an ocean liner to a lot of people who weren't in prison, too, of course. And their TV sets were portholes through which they could look while doing nothing, to see all the World was doing with no help from them.
Look at it go! — Kurt Vonnegut

But that's how it is on a sailing ship, and in this respect its journey parallels that of life: simply knowing where you want to go isn't enough, because life is a windblown voyage, consisting mainly of the detours imposed by alternating calm and storm. — Carsten Jensen

A life without vows is like a ship without an anchor or like an edifice that is built on sand instead of a solid rock. — Mahatma Gandhi

The Fathers intent desire is that none would 'perish'. The promise God has given us is one of 'liberation'- Freedom. Being set free "from" captivity and reconciled "to" your Father. Intimacy with Jesus garners son-ship with Abba. As Jesus "demonstrated" that Son-ship of Grace he said, 'I only "say" and "do" what I hear the Father saying and doing'. Proclaiming the Kingdom of God by "Do'in the Stuff". The early church 'got' Jesus. John Wimber 're-got' Jesus and began proclaiming the Kingdom and demonstrating it as any loving son would of his Father. Now, we are no longer refuges but 'Bona Fide' citizens in good standing with our King and our new country. Where Love, Mercy, Grace; Peace 'rains' on us eternally here and now. 'The Already But Not Yet' (Ruis)."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] — R. Alan Woods