Wind Sail Quotes & Sayings

Never defend yourself; agree with your critics, it takes the wind out of their sails. — Fay Weldon

The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. — Annie Dillard

Winds flap the sail, tortoise and snake are silent, a great plan looms. A bridge will fly over this moat dug by heaven and be a road from north to south. We will make a stone wall against the upper river to the west and hold back steamy clouds and rain of Wu peaks. Over tall chasms will be a calm lake, and if the goddess of these mountains is not dead she will marvel at the changed world. — Mao Zedong

When his mouth snaps shut a third time, I splash water in his face. Are you going to say something or are you trying to catch wind and sail? — Anna Banks

The same wind blows on us all. The economic wind, the social wind, the political wind. The same wind blows on everybody. The difference in where you arrive in one year, three years, five years, the difference in arrival is not the blowing of the wind but the set of the sail. — Jim Rohn

Melancholy and remorse forms the deep leaden keel which enables us to sail into the wind of reality. — Cyril Connolly

On a day when the wind is perfect, the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty.
Today is such a day. — Rumi

I cannot predict the wind but I can have my sail ready. — E.F. Schumacher

My God, this novel makes me break out in a cold sweat! Do you know how much I've written in five months, since the end of August? Sixty-five pages! Each paragraph is good in itself and there are some pages that are perfect. I feel certain. But just because of this, it isn't getting on. It's a series of well-turned, ordered paragraphs which do not flow on from each other. I shall have to unscrew them, loosen the joints, as one does with the masts of a ship when one wants the sail to take more wind ... — Gustave Flaubert

If you learn to set a good sail, the wind that blows will always take you to the dreams you want, the income you want, and the treasures of mind, purse, and soul you want. — Jim Rohn

My heart rides the wind and my thoughts sail away - to a land below the horizon where I know you hide from me ... — John Geddes

It all started off with stirring speeches, Greek columns, the thrill of something new. Now all that's left is a presidency adrift, surviving on slogans that already seem tired, grasping at a moment that has already passed, like a ship trying to sail on yesterday's wind. — Paul Ryan

If we are all strong, stable, we can set our sail with any wind in the world that comes along. We make up our own direction. If we are not strong, we are like a leaf in the wind and the world's winds will take us where they wish, not where we wish. So we meditate, every day, regularly, and gain transcendental being in our everyday life and then we are strong. When we are all infused with Being, we need not think which course is right, we just take the one that is automatically. Being is the wind-resister and the sail-setter ... — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

You know, a man's life is a lot like a boat. If he keeps his sail set right it doesn't make too much difference which way the wind blows or which way the current flows. If he knows where he wants to go and keeps his sail trimmed carefully he'll come into the right port. But if he forgets to watch his sail till the current catches him broadside he's pretty apt to smash up on the rocks. — Ralph Moody

On the wind his sail unfurled and away from our shores his ship drifted. — Celma Ribeiro

Hoist the sails of your own spirit to catch the winds of God. — Ralph Washington Sockman

Walking aft a few feet we stand at the steering gear of the ship. There is no cozy; wheel-house on the bridge for the quartermaster of a sailing ship! He must stand at the very stern, with an unobstructed view of the sails. When sailing "by the wind" his eye is glued to the weather-side of the uppermost sail; he keeps it drawing a trace of wind, but never lets it fill. — Paul J. H. Schoemaker

The wind is rising and we must make sail. Anchors aweigh! We must be off! — Amitav Ghosh

Never set a child afloat on the flat sea of life with only one sail to catch the wind. — D.H. Lawrence

Mastery is the rudder, Mystery is the sail and Magic the wind to move you in your chosen direction. — Jack White

The wind of divine grace is always blowing. You just need to spread your sail. Whenever you do anything, do it with your whole heart concentrated on it. Think day and night, I am of the essence of that Supreme Being-Consciousness-Bliss. What fear and anxiety have I? — Swami Vivekananda

Shrewd and crafty politicians, when they wish to bring about an unpopular measure, must not go straight forward to work, if they do they will certainly fail; and failures to men in power, are like defeats to a general, they shake their popularity. Therefore, since they cannot sail in the teeth of the wind, they must tack, and ultimately gain their object, by appearing at times to be departing from it. — Charles Caleb Colton

s ships Phoenix and Rose, in the company of three tenders, cast off their moorings at Staten Island and started up the harbor under full sail, moving swiftly with the favorable wind and a perfect flood tide. Alarm guns sounded in New York. Soldiers — David McCullough

But in the dark now and no glow showing and no lights and only the wind and the steady pull of the sail he felt that perhaps he was already dead. He put his two hands together and felt the palms. They were not dead and he could bring the pain of life by simply opening and closing them. He leaned his back against the stern and knew he was not dead. His shoulders told him. — Ernest Hemingway,

Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel. — Augustus Hare

Turn over the rudder in God's name, and sail with the wind heaven sends us. — Catherine Of Siena

Gray sail against the sky, Gray butterfly! Have you a dream for going. Or are you the blind wind's blowing? — Dana Burnet

Things change," Daja said softly. "We change with them. We sail before the wind. We become adults. As adults, we keep our minds and our secrets hidden, and our wounds. It's safer. — Tamora Pierce

I can't control the wind but I can adjust the sail. — Ricky Skaggs

Don't go getting full of yourself becuase once you do, somebody's going to come and let the wind out of your sails — Sharon G. Flake

I certainly never feel discouraged. I can't myself raise the winds that might blow us or this ship into a better world. But I can at least put up the sail so that when the winds comes, I can catch it. — E.F. Schumacher

the bouquet

Between me and the world
you are a bay, a sail
the faithful ends of a rope
you are a fountain, a wind,
a shrill childhood cry.

Between me and the world
you are a picture frame, a window
a field covered in wildflowers
you are a breath, a bed,
a night that keeps the stars company.

Between me and the world,
you are a calendar, a compass
a ray of light that slips through the gloom
you are a biographical sketch, a book mark
a preface that comes at the end.

between me and the world
you are a gauze curtain, a mist
a lamp shining in my dreams
you are a bamboo flute, a song without words
a closed eyelid carved in stone.

Between me and the world
you are a chasm, a pool
an abyss plunging down
you are a balustrade, a wall
a shield's eternal pattern. — Bei Dao

... she felt, more and more strongly, outside that eddy; or as if a shade had fallen, and robbed of colour, she saw things truly ... Nothing seemed to have merged. They all sat separate. And the whole of the effort of merging and flowing and creating rested ... and so, giving herself the little shake that one gives a watch that has stopped, the old familiar pulse began beating, as the watch begins ticking - one, two, three, one, two, three. And so on and so on, she repeated, listening to it, sheltering and fostering the still feeble pulse as one might guard a weak flame with a newspaper ... life being now strong enough to bear her on again, she began all this business, as a sailor not without weariness sees the wind fill his sail and yet hardly wants to be off again and thinks how, had the ship sunk, he would have whirled round and round and found rest on the floor of the sea. — Virginia Woolf

Carry me on and on to the edge of the earth, with children's laughter like a wind - full sail, then carry me beyond — Eowyn Ivey

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving - 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, Sr.

We need to stop burning fossil fuels and utilize only wind, water, and solar power with all generation of power coming from individual or small community units like windmills, waterwheels, and solar panels. Sea transportation should be by sail ... Air transportation should be by solar powered blimps when air transportation is necessary. — Paul Watson

Like wind
In it, with it, of it. Of it just like a sail, so light and strong that, even when it is bent flat, it gathers all the power of the wind without hampering its course.
Like light
In light, lit through by light, transformed into light. Like the lens which disappears in the light it focuses.
Like wind. Like light.
Just this
on these expanses, on these heights. — Dag Hammarskjold

With his ship faced with the danger of sinking, the Richard's chief gunner screamed to the Serapis, "Quarter! quarter! for God's sake!" Jones hurled a pistol at the man, felling him. But the cry had been heard by Pearson, the Serapis' commander, who called, "Do you ask for quarter?" Through the clash of battle, gunshot and crackle of fire the famous reply came faintly back to him: "I have not yet begun to fight!" Making good his boast, Jones sprang to a 9-pounder whose gun crew were killed or wounded, loaded and fired it himself, aiming at the Serapis' mainmast, then loaded and fired again. As the mast toppled, Pearson, surrounded by dead, with rigging on fire, hauled down his red ensign in token of surrender. Escorted to Richard's quarterdeck, he handed over his sword to Jones just as the Serapis' mainmast crashed over the side and its sail, nevermore to carry the wind, collapsed in a dying billow into the sea. — Barbara W. Tuchman

A headland, a ship, a sail upon the billows. Farewell. A lovely girl, her veil awave upon the wind upon the headland, wind around her. — James Joyce

He is wisest, who only gives, True to himself, the best he can: Who drifting on the winds of praise, The inward monitor obeys. And with the boldness that confuses fear Takes in the crowded sail, and lets his conscience steer. — John Greenleaf Whittier

Genius is both the sail and the wind; that's why he continues his journey without stopping! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

And he misses her
Like a wind starved sail
He sits knowing what direction to go
But the current keeps pulling him
Down river. — Rumi

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail. — David Hare

Reason can no more influence the will, and operate as a motive, than the eyes which show a man his road can enable him to move from place to place, or that a ship provided with a compass can sail without a wind. — Richard Whately

Sometimes a party must sail against the wind. We cannot heed the call of those who say it is time to furl the sail. The party that tore itself apart over Vietnam in the 1960s cannot afford to tear itself apart today over budget cuts in basic social programs. — Edward Kennedy

Separately there was only wind, water, sail, and hull, but at my hand the four had been given purpose and direction. — Lowell Thomas

Give me a spirit that on this life's rough sea Loves t'have his sails filled with a lusty wind, Even till his sail-yards tremble, his masts crack, And his ship run on her side so low That she drinks water, and her keel plows air. — George Chapman

The wind of God is always blowing ... but you must hoist your sail. — Francois Fenelon

Once we agree on the future, the present will be much easier. A captain who does not know where he wants to sail, there is no wind on Earth that will bring him there. We have first to decide where we want to go, where we want to sail. — Ami Ayalon

Every object is beautiful in motion; a ship under sail, trees gently agitated with the wind, and a fine woman dancing, are three instances in point — Abigail Adams

Tristran sat at the top of the spire of cloud and wondered why none of the heroes of the penny dreadfuls he used to read so avidly were ever hungry. His stomach rumbled, and his hand hurt him so.

Adventures are all very well in their place, he thought, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.

Still, he was alive, and the wind was in his hair, and the cloud was scudding through the sky like a galleon at full sail. Looking out over the world from above, he could never remember feeling so alive as he did at that moment. There was a skyness to the sky and a nowness to the world that he had never seen or felt or realized before.

He understood that he was, in some way, above his problems, just as he was above the world. — Neil Gaiman

The sailor does not pray for wind, he learns to sail. — Gustaf Lindborg

I sail on the ocean of possibilities with the wind of hope and the current of desires moving me to the shore of uncertainty. — Debasish Mridha

Straddled the knot, so that it acted as a seat. Then you got up all your nerve, took a deep breath, and jumped. For a second you seemed to be falling to the barn floor far below, but then suddenly the rope would begin to catch you, and you would sail through the barn door going a mile a minute, with the wind whistling in your eyes and ears and hair. Then you would zoom upward into the sky, and look up at the clouds, and the rope would twist and — E.B. White

When the winds of life don't hit your sails, you grab the oars of life and you start pushing. — Greg Plitt

I'll always be there, Anna, in every ship you see sailing past. I'll be the wind in its sail. — Jade Parker

[ ... ]sometimes it seemed to him that although the man was the master, which was of course only right and proper, if you watched and listened, you would see that their marriage was like a barge on the river, with the wife being the wind that told the captain which way the barge would sail. Mrs. Mayhew, if not being the wind, certainly knew when to apply the right puff. — Terry Pratchett

Doubt swells and surges, with swelling doubt behind!
My soul in storm is but a tattered sail,
Streaming its ribbons on the torrent gale;
In calm, 'tis but a limp and flapping thing:
Oh! swell it with thy breath; make it a wing,
To sweep through thee the ocean, with thee the wind
Nor rest until in thee its haven it shall find.
Roses are scentless, hopeless are the morns,
Rest is but weakness, laughter crackling thorns,
But love is life. To die of love is then
The only pass to higher life than this.
All love is death to loving, living men;
All deaths are leaps across clefts to the abyss.
Weakness needs pity, sometimes love's rebuke;
Strength only sympathy deserves and draws -
And grows by every faithful loving look.
Ripeness must always come with loss of might. — George MacDonald

Nothing is here to stay
Everything has to begin and end
A ship in a bottle won't sail
All we can do is dream that the wind will blow us across the water
A ship in a bottle set sail — Dave Matthews

Then, slowly, my feet settled to the ground. Before I had taken six steps I sagged like a sail when the wind fades. As I walked back through the town, past sleeping houses and dark inns, my mood swung from elation to doubt in the space of three brief breaths.
I had ruined everything. All the things I had said, things that seemed so clever at the time, were in fact the worst things a fool could say. Even now she was inside, breathing a sigh of relief to finally be rid of me.
But she had smiled. Had laughed.
She hadn't remembered our first meeting on the road from Tarbean. I couldn't have made that much of an impression on her.
'Steal me,' she had said.
I should have been bolder and kissed her at the end. I should have been more cautious. I had talked too much. I had said too little. — Patrick Rothfuss

A needle is such a small brittle thing. It is easily broken. It can hold but one fragile thread. But if the needle is sharp, it can pierce the coarsest cloth. Ply the needle in and out of a canvas and with a great length of thread one can make a sail to move a ship across the ocean. In such a way can a sharp glossy tongue, with the thinnest of thread of a rumor, stitch together a story to flap in the breeze. Hoist that story upon the pillar of superstitious belief and a whole town can be pulled along with the wind of fear. — Kathleen Kent

Ah, only he who knows where he sails, knows what wind is good, and a fair wind for him. — Friedrich Nietzsche

She could hear again the ripple of water, the flapping sail. She could see the glint of the moon upon the bay, and could feel the soft, gusty beating of the hot south wind. A subtle current of desire passed through her body, weakening her hold upon the brushes and making her eyes burn. — Kate Chopin

Hush, hush, my bonnie sweet lamb. Tho' my ship must sail in the morning, I will be with you When the salt spray fans the shore, I will be with you When the wind blows the heather, I will be with you when the dove sings her song, Sing ba la loo laddie, sing ba la loo dear Hush, hush, my bonnie sweet lamb. — Carol Goodman

Come dance with the west wind and touch on the mountain tops Sail o'er the canyons and up to the stars And reach for the heavens and hope for the future And all that we can be and not what we are ... — John Denver

Everything in the world is a force, a pull or a push. In order for us to be pushed or pulled we need to be like a sail, like a kite in the wind. But if we have a hole in the middle of our luminosity, the force goes through it and never acts upon us. — Carlos Castaneda

A nation aimlessly drifting away from God is a nation for which prayer is a rudder and praise is a sail. And it is the man or woman on their knees that builds the former and gives wind to the latter. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

When you really love someone, you cannot walk away. No matter what they do. No matter the lies from their mouth, or the actions from their bodies, you tie yourself tightly to their sail and vow to be there through thick and thin. Let the wind blow you where it may. Even if that place is a crash. Even if that place tears you apart and kills anything good. — Alessandra Torre

I'll find you, Will!
Then the wind filled the big, square sail of the wolfship and she heeled away from the shore, moving faster and faster towards the northeast.
For a long time after she'd dropped below the horizon, the sodden figure sat there, his horse chest-deep in the rolling waves, staring after the ship.
And his lips still moved, in a silent promis only he could hear. — John Flanagan

At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar off some white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not know what this chance would be, what wind would bring it her, towards what shore it would drive her, if it would be a shallop or a three-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss to the portholes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would come that day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with a start, wondered that it did not come; then at sunset, always more saddened, she longed for the morrow. — Gustave Flaubert

You are going to take the high sea of the world; change not, on that account, patron or sails, anchor or wind. Have Jesus always for your patron, His Cross for a mast on which you must spread your resolutions as a sail. Your anchor shall be a profound confidence in Him, and you shall sail prosperously.
May the favorable wind of celestial inspirations ever fill your vessel's sails fuller and fuller and make you happily arrive at the port of a holy eternity. — Francis De Sales

When he couldn't walk anymore he sailed, and when he couldn't sail anymore he was at the End of the World, where sat a dignified man in a dinner suit, dangling his long legs over the edge. He was patting his lapels and turning out his pockets and looking generally perplexed. "Bother," said the well-dressed man. "I've lost the Key to the World. If I don't wind it up and set its clockwork going again, the sun and moon and stars won't turn, and the world will be plunged into an eternal nighttime of miserable cold and darkness. Bother! — Lev Grossman

Don't try to sail your ship now by how the wind is going to be in three days.
You have to sail with the winds are they are now. — Stefan Molyneux

Her heart ruffled like a wind torn sail, held, yet ripped. — Dorothy Adamek

You cannot change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust your sails to always reach your destination." So it is that when disasters occur in our lives and we go within to discover our inner strength or to seek discernment, we have choices to continue in the same direction the storm of life has paved for us, or adjust our sail and get back on track to what we believe and know to be our path in life. — Stephen R. Covey

It takes a lot of wind to sail a leaky boat. — Tom Morrison

What's prayer? It's shooting shafts into the dark. What mark they strike, if any, who's to say? It's reaching for a hand you cannot touch. The silence is so fathomless that prayers like plummets vanish into the sea. You beg. You whimper. You load God down with empty praise. You tell him sins that he already knows full well. You seek to change his changeless will. Yet Godric prays the way he breathes, for else his heart would wither in his breast. Prayer is the wind that fills his sail. Else drift with witless tides. And sometimes, by God's grace, a prayer is heard. — Frederick Buechner

Down Time's quaint stream
Without an oar
We are enforced to sail
Our Port a secret
Our Perchance a Gale
What Skipper would
Incur the Risk
What Buccaneer would ride
Without a surety from the Wind
Or schedule of the Tide — Emily Dickinson

My galley, charged with forgetfulness,
Thorough sharp seas in winter nights doth pass
'Tween rock and rock; and eke mine enemy, alas,
That is my lord, steereth with cruelness;
And every oar a thought in readiness,
As though that death were light in such a case.
An endless wind doth tear the sail apace
Of forced sighs and trusty fearfulness.
A rain of tears, a cloud of dark disdain,
Hath done the weared cords great hinderance;
Wreathed with error and eke with ignorance.
The stars be hid that led me to this pain.
Drowned is reason that should me consort,
And I remain despairing of the port. — Thomas Wyatt

Death is before me today:
Like the recovery of a sick man,
Like going forth into a garden after sickness.
Death is before me today:
Like the odor of myrrh,
Like sitting under a sail in a good wind.
Death is before me today:
Like the course of a stream,
Like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house.
Death is before me today:
Like the home that a man longs to see,
After years spent as a captive. — Neil Gaiman

A captain who does not know where he wants to sail, there is no wind on Earth that will bring him there. — Ami Ayalon

Come aboard, come aboard!" cried the gay Bachelor's commander, lifting a glass and a bottle in the air. "Hast seen the White Whale?" gritted Ahab in reply. "No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all," said the other good-humoredly. "Come aboard!" "Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?" "Not enough to speak of - two islanders, that's all; - but come aboard, old hearty, come along. I'll soon take that black from your brow. Come along, will ye (merry's the play); a full ship and homeward-bound." "How wondrous familiar is a fool!" muttered Ahab; then aloud, "Thou art a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayest; well, then, call me an empty ship, and outward-bound. So go thy ways, and I will mine. Forward there! Set all sail, and keep her to the wind! — Herman Melville

Two things that lived separately and yet together: a brook and the sky, the wind and the water that coursed through both their veins. You needed both to sail. You needed both in tandem to achieve perfection. — Katy Regnery

Well, it's not far down to paradise, at least it's not for me
And if the wind is right you can sail away and find tranquility ... — Christopher Cross

Ashes

The tide comes in; the tide goes out again
washing the beach clear of what the storm
dumped. Where there were rocks, today there is sand;
where sand yesterday, now uncovered rocks.

So I think on where her mortal remains
might reach landfall in their transmuted forms,
a year now since I cast them from my hand
- wanting to stop the inexorable clock.

She who died by her own hand cannot know
the simple love I have for what she left
behind. I could not save her. I could not
even try. I watch the way the wind blows
life into slack sail: the stress of warp against weft
lifts the stalling craft, pushes it on out. — Paula Meehan

Let the winds blow! a fiercer gale
Is wild within me! what may quell
That sullen tempest? I must sail
Whither, O whither, who can tell! — Edmund Clarence Stedman

Perhaps we cannot raise the winds. But each of us can put up the sail, so that when the wind comes we can catch it. — E.F. Schumacher

This beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath ... — Gary Paulsen

One sometimes must sail with the wind and sometimes against it, but the important thing is to keep your sails full. — Mark Beauregard

God provides the wind, Man must raise the sail. — Augustine Of Hippo

A strong woman is a woman who craves love like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong in words, in action, in connection, in feeling; she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she enacts it as the wind fills a sail. — Marge Piercy

The forces of Hannibal, Drake and Napoleon moved at best with the horses' gallop or the speed of wind on sail. Now, aviation brings a new concept of time and distance to the affairs of men. It demands adaptability to change, places a premium on quickness of thought and speed of action. — Charles Lindbergh

Deep in her soul, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she would gaze out over the solitude of her life with desperate eyes, seeking some white sail in the mists of the far-off horizon. She did not know what this chance event would be, what wind would drive it to her, what shore it would carry her to, whether it was a longboat or a three-decked vessel, loaded with anguish or filled with happiness up to the portholes. But each morning, when she awoke, she hoped it would arrive that day. ... - GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, Madame Bovary — Lena Dunham

I am the daughter of a tall, strong tree. My timber forms a ship, but it is anchorless, flagless. I set sail for the shade and the light; I drink the wind and forget all ports. To hell with freedom, gifted or seized; if in doubt, always endure alone. — Nina George

Sea-fever
I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over. — John Masefield

To live as I incline, or not to live at all: so do I wish; so wisheth also the holiest. But alas! how have I still - inclination?
Have I-still a goal? A haven towards which MY sail is set?
A good wind? Ah, he only who knoweth WHITHER he saileth, knoweth what wind is good, and a fair wind for him.
What still remaineth to me? A heart weary and flippant; and unstable will; fluttering wings; a broken backbone.
This seeking for MY home: O Zarathustra, dost thou know that this seeking hath been MY home-sickening; it eateth me up. — Friedrich Nietzsche

This process of being mature in an anxious organisation has been likened to learning to sail against the wind; and as any sailor will tell you, this requires concentration and tolerating some tension as the wind pressures the vessel to let it take over the controls. Good skippers know how to tolerate sufficient tension to keep a steady course. They don't try to overpower their vessel with too much sail in order to get to the finish line faster, as they know this will inevitably knock them backwards. They also know not to panic and retreat to the safe harbour of familiarity. They focus on their key tasks of setting the course and letting the crew know their intensions so that each person can get on with focusing on their own tasks. There's only one path to growing this ability: through patient, thoughtful perseverance in the midst of experience ... no short cuts to be found. — Jenny Brown

The moment I took hold of the line, I felt the mighty tug of the wind coursing into my palm and wrist, and there I stayed, transfixed. The pwer in that topgallant sail suddenly awed me, and yet it was among the smaller sails on the mast. It was a mere speck on the ocean, catching an infinitesimal fraction of all the howling winds that crossed the wide seas. I literally could not move a muscle, trying in vain to absorb the magnitude of it.
And there was something else, as well. This wind was blowing me westward. I was hurtling into my own predestined future. With neither star nor compass, I knew the heading of this wind. It bore down on a lonely river crossing in one of the last wild places on Earth, where timber moaned in a gale, and frosty grass sparkled in the dawn, and beasts lumbered and thundered the valley. A sacred place protected by Comanches. — Mike Blakely

Plants do not grow all by themselves; they are pulled by the sunlight, the soil and all of the other factors required for their development. A sailboat does not sail; the wind moves the sail. All things are influenced by something else, as all people are acted upon by other things. Our behavior is generated by the many interacting variables that we encounter; there is no one thing that influences human behavior. — Joseph P. Kauffman

Hoist up sail while gale doth last, Tide and wind stay no man's pleasure. — Robert Southwell