Steamboat Quotes & Sayings

This Levantine spirit developed gradually in Beirut after the Industrial Revolution, as the burgeoning Lebanese silk trade and the invention of the steamboat combined to bring men and women of America and Western Europe in large numbers to the Levant. These settlers from the West were Catholic and Protestant missionaries, diplomats, and merchants, Jewish traders, travelers and physicians; and they brought with them Western commerce, manners, and ideas and, most of all, a certain genteel, open, tolerant attitude toward life and toward other cultures. Their mores and manners were gradually imitated by elite elements of the local native populations, who made a highly intelligent blend of these Western ideas with their own indigenous Arabic, Greek, and Turkish cultures, which had their own traditions of tolerance. "To be a Levantine," wrote Hourani, "is to live in two worlds or more at once, without belonging to either." In — Thomas L. Friedman

In the United States three new methods of transportation made their appearance at almost the same time - the steamboat, the canal boat, and the rail car. — John Moody

When I came to myself again, I said - 'When I get so that I can do that, I'll be able to raise the dead, and then I won't have to pilot a steamboat to make a living. I want to retire from this business. I want a slush-bucket and a brush; I'm only fit for a roustabout. I haven't got brains enough to be a pilot; and if I had I wouldn't have strength enough to carry them around, unless I went on crutches.' 'Now drop that! When I say I'll learn {footnote ['Teach' is not in the river vocabulary.]} a man the river, I mean it. And you can depend on it, I'll learn him or kill him. — Mark Twain

As she stepped into the steamboat at Dover which was to convey her to scenes so new, Lucilla felt more and more that she who held the reorganisation of society in Carlingford in her hands was a woman with a mission. — Mrs. Oliphant

Does the price matter, if the trick be well done? You do your tricks very well. And I didn't do badly either, since I managed not to sink that steamboat on my first trip. It's a wonder to me yet. Imagine a blindfolded man set to — Joseph Conrad

When we got to Steamboat, we were on that big stage at five in the afternoon, and it was almost at capacity. I told my guys 'no matter what we've done to get to this point, no matter what lows, what highs, right now we are here and we've got a point to prove. It was probably one of my most memorable performances thus far. — Cody Johnson

It isn't as it used to be in the old times. Then everybody traveled by steamboat, everybody drank, and everybody treated everybody else. 'Now most everybody goes by railroad, and the rest don't drink. — Mark Twain

And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter, - we need never read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? — Henry David Thoreau

When its errands are noble and adequate, a steamboat bridging the Atlantic between Old and New England, and arriving at its ports with the punctuality of a planet, is a step of man into harmony with nature. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it
should be blithe and strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank
or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work,
or leaves off work,
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his
boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat
deck,
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the
hatter singing as he stands,
The wood-cutter's song, the ploughboy's on his
way in the morning, or at noon intermission
or at sundown,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the
young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or
washing,
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to
none else,
The day what belongs to the day - at night the
party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious
songs. — Walt Whitman

I don't know about one moment that has pivoted my career. I do know that one thing that hit me and made me take a few steps back was a year at Steamboat. — Cody Johnson

I've been enjoying 'Life on the Mississippi' by Mark Twain that I picked up at the airport randomly. It's very witty and interesting to read about his time as a steamboat pilot. — Roman Coppola

I wrote a letter to my Dad - I wrote, "I really enjoy being here," but I accidentally wrote rarely instead of really. But I still wanted to use it, so I wrote, "I rarely drive steamboats, Dad - there's a lot of stuff you don't know about me. Quit trying to act like I'm a steamboat operator." This letter took a harsh turn right away. — Mitch Hedberg

No influential friend would have served me better. She [the steamboat] had given me a chance to come out a bit-to find out what I could do. No, I don't like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work-no man does-but I like what is in the work,-the chance to find yourself. Your own reality-for yourself, not for others-what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and can never tell what it really means. — Joseph Conrad

My mother would thump me sharply on the head with a thimble or a spoon if I became too noisy with the whistle when I was playing I was a steamboat captain. She had no sense of the dignity of command. — Lincoln Steffens

How solemn and beautiful is the thought, that the earliest pioneer of civilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat, never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school, never the missionary - but always whiskey! Such is the case. Look history over; you will see. The missionary comes after the whiskey - I mean he arrives after the whiskey has arrived; next comes the poor immigrant, with ax and hoe and rifle; next, the trader; next, the miscellaneous rush; next, the gambler, the desperado, the highwayman, and all their kindred in sin of both sexes; and next, the smart chap who has bought up an old grant that covers all the land; this brings the lawyer tribe; the vigilance committee brings the undertaker. All these interests bring the newspaper; the newspaper starts up politics and a railroad; all hands turn to and build a church and a jail - and — Mark Twain

The truth is that exploration and enlargement make the world smaller. The telegraph and the steamboat make the world smaller. The telescope makes the world smaller; it is only the microscope that makes it larger. Before long the world will be cloven with a war between the telescopists and the microscopists. The first study large things and live in a small world; the second study small things and live in a large world. It is inspiriting without doubt to whizz in a motor-car round the earth, to feel Arabia as a whirl of sand or China as a flash of rice-fields. But Arabia is not a whirl of sand and China is not a flash of rice-fields. They are ancient civilizations with strange virtues buried like treasures. If we wish to understand them it must not be as tourists or inquirers, it must be with the loyalty of children and the great patience of poets. To conquer these places is to lose them. — G.K. Chesterton

When its steamboat time
you steamboat — Mark Twain

To secure the safety of the navigation of the Mississippi River I would slay millions. On that point I am not only insane, but mad ... I think I see one or two quick blows that will astonish the natives of the South and will convince them that, though to stand behind a big cottonwood and shoot at a passing boat is good sport and safe, it may still reach and kill their friends and families hundreds of miles off. For every bullet shot at a steamboat, I would shoot a thousand 30-pounder Parrots into even helpless towns on Red, Ouachita, Yazoo, or wherever a boat can float or soldier march. — William Tecumseh Sherman

The steamboat left the harbor and it was something in this world, the paddle thundering, the smokestack blowing, and people lined up on the top deck waving handkerchiefs. I watched it — Sue Monk Kidd

My steamboat voyage to Albany and back, has turned out rather more favorable than I had calculated. The distance from New York to Albany is one hundred and fifty miles; I ran it up in thirty-two hours, and down in thirty. I had a light breeze against me the whole way, both going and coming, and the voyage has been performed wholly by, the power of the steam engine. I overtook many sloops and schooners beating to windward and parted with them as if they had been at anchor. The power of propelling boats by steam is now fully proved. — Robert Fulton

New York has her wilderness within her own borders; and though the sailors of Europe are familiar with the soundings of her Hudson, and Fulton long since invented the steamboat on its waters, an Indian is still necessary to guide her scientific men to its headwaters in the Adirondack country. — Henry David Thoreau

You look at the steamboat, the railroad, the car, the airplane - not all of these were invented in the Anglo-American world, but they were popularized and extended by it. They were made possible by the financial architecture, the capital intensive operations invented and developed by the Anglo-Americans. — Walter Russell Mead

For decades, people have known the chemical-propulsion approach to space travel is really not going to get us that far. Chemical propulsion is essentially like the horse-and-cart approach to the exploration of the American West, instead of the steamboat or the railroad. — Franklin Chang Diaz