Wind Sails Quotes & Sayings

Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab commanded the t'gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. The best man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every mast-head manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. The strange, upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air beneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic influences were struggling in her - one to mount direct to heaven, the other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched Ahab's face that night, you would have thought that in him also two different things were warring. — Herman Melville

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

For my part, whether sailing in cruiser or dinghy, I shall remain myself. My sails are not puffed out with the north wind in my favour, nor am I beating into the southern gales of affliction. — Horace

Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow billows of mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod's gurgling track, pushed her on like giants' palms outspread. The strong, unstaggering breeze abounded so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole world boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place; where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian kings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was as a crucible of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light and heat. — Herman Melville

When life takes the wind out of your sails, it is to test you at the oars. — Robert Breault

A woman could be the wind beneath a man's sails or a gale to send him into uncharted waters. She could be an anchor in stormy seas, or she could let him drift into the rocks. — Francine Rivers

Farewell," they cried, "Wherever you fare till your eyries receive you at the journey's end!" That is the polite thing to say among eagles.
"May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks," answered Gandalf, who knew the correct reply. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Well, once you get the groove of your life and you sort out the aspects of your life that you prefer, and you've performed all your responsibilities as a father and as a partner. And just discovery and the great adventure of having eyes wide open. There's so much of this beautiful planet that is still actually spectacular and stimulating. There are so many amazing people that you meet along the way. By using my career as the wind in the sails of my adventures, I could see so many things and so many people that I might have missed had my career gone a different direction. — Robert Plant

The shortest route is not the most direct one, but rather the one where the most favorable winds swell our sails:Mthat is the lesson that seafarers teach. Not to abide by this lesson is to be obstinate: here, firmness of character is tainted with stupidity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I do feel my fan base, my community understands me and appreciates me very deeply, and that is the wind in my sails to keep doing what I am doing. I know that my work really inspires people and they tell me that all the time, and so that's wonderful. — Ondi Timoner

Hey, things like that happen at the Academy too," I insisted, almost triumphantly. "Last year the freezers failed so there was no ice for" - the wind went out of my sails as I realized how lame this was going to sound - "the sushi bar." He nodded sympathetically. "You guys should get T-shirts made. You know: I Survived the Sushi Crisis. — Gordon Korman

I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. — Jimmy Dean

She stood in the storm, and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails. — Elizabeth Edwards

You know reviewers, they are the wind in their own sails. — Barbara Kingsolver

Nothing beats a private visit to Number Ten or Chequers to take the wind out of rebellious sails. — Andy Coulson

Goals are my north star. My compass. The map that guides me along the road I wish to travel. Goals are motivations with wind in their sails - they carry me forward despite the storms. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Arsenal have the wind in their sails and they need to put their foot to the floor. — Andy Townsend

What matters for the dialectician is having the wind of world history in his sails. Thinking for him means: to set the sails. It is the way they are set that matters. Words are his sails. The way they are set turns them into concepts. — Walter Benjamin

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 pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. — William Arthur Ward

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. The wind is blowing; those vessels whose sails are unfurled catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have their sails furled do not catch the wind. Is that the fault of the wind? ... We make our own destiny. — Swami Vivekananda

Don't let the storm take the wind out of your sails. — Deborah Jackson

It is the set of the sails, not the direction of the wind that determines which way we will go. — Jim Rohn

The real skill is to raise the sails and to catch the power of the wind as it passes by. — Thomas Berry

We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. — Dolly Parton

You can't change the wind but you can set your sails. — Green Day

I'm a one-hundred-percent, made-in-Florida, dope-smugglin', time-sharin', spring-breakin', log-flumin', double-occupancy discount vacation. I'm a tall glass of orange juice and a day without sunshine. I'm the wind in your sails, the sun on your burn and the moon over Miami. I am the native. — Tim Dorsey

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live. Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom. Only a person who risks is free. The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; and the realist adjusts the sails — William Arthur Ward

Sundown. The distressed sloop, its mainmast shattered by lightning, its sails ripped by the winds of the open sea, drifted into the small, quiet beach of a private island in the Lesser Antilles — Robert Ludlum

Behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,
Breasting the lofty surge — William Shakespeare

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

You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since-on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. — Charles Dickens

You can't always control the wind, but you can control your sails. — Tony Robbins

The passions are the winds which fill the sails of the vessel; they sink it at times, but without them it would be impossible to make way. — Voltaire

The 'tail' of a comet, by the way, is a train of dust, but it is not streaming out behind the head of the comet as we might think. Instead, it is 'blown' by a stream of particles coming from the sun, which we call the solar wind. So the tail of the comet always points away from the sun, no matter which way the comet is travelling. There's an exciting proposal, once confined to science fiction stories but now being implemented by Japanese space engineers, to use the solar wind to propel spacecraft equipped with gigantic 'sails'. Like sailing yachts on the sea using real wind, solar wind space-yachts would theoretically provide a very economical way to travel to distant worlds. — Richard Dawkins

Well, well, the world must turn upon its axis, And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails, And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, And as the veering winds shift, shift our sails. — Lord Byron

Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea! Over the rolling waters go, Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest, Father will come to thee soon; Rest, rest, on mother's breast, Father will come to thee soon; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon: Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. — Alfred Lord Tennyson

The wind of God's grace is incessantly blowing. Lazy sailors on the sea of life do not take advantage of it. But the active and strong always keep the sails of their minds unfurled to catch the favorable winds and thus reach their destination very soon. — Mahatma Gandhi

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

We clear the harbor and the wind catches her sails and my beautiful ship leans over ever so gracefully, and her elegant bow cuts cleanly into the increasing chop of the waves. I take a deep breath and my chest expands and my heart starts thumping so strongly I fear the others might see it beat through the cloth of my jacket. I face the wind and my lips peel back from my teeth in a grin of pure joy. — L.A. Meyer

Evolution is fundamentally creative, and when we align ourselves with the evolutionary movements of consciousness, the universe itself puts wind in our sails. Quantum thinking goes beyond the thoughts we're aware of; it includes unconscious processing, which doesn't just expand our boundaries, but can also free us from the suffering that conscious processing (sometimes known as 'the monkey mind') creates. — Amit Goswami

My darling was purring in her sleep, with the archaic smile on her lips, and she had the extra glow of comfort and solace she gets after love, a calm fulfilledness.
I should have been sleepy after wandering around the night before, but I wasn't. I've noticed that I am rarely sleepy if I know I can sleep long in the morning. The red dots were swimming in my eyes, and the street light threw the shadows of naked elm branches on the ceiling, where they made slow and stately cats' cradles because the spring wind was blowing. The window was open halfway and the white curtains swelled and filled like sails on an anchored boat ...
I felt good and fulfilled, too, but whereas Mary dives for sleep, I didn't want to go to sleep. I wanted to go on fully tasting how good I felt. — John Steinbeck

Windmills, which are used in the great plains of Holland and North Germany to supply the want of falling water, afford another instance of the action of velocity. The sails are driven by air in motion - by wind. — Hermann Von Helmholtz

This is a modern fairytale. No happy endings. No wind in our sails. But I can't imagine a life without. Breathless moments. — Selena Gomez

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

But you have to understand, American democracy is not like the system you have. We're not an ocean liner that sails across the ocean from point A to point B at 30 knots. That's not American democracy. American democracy is kind of like a life raft that bobs around the ocean all the time. Your feet are always wet. Winds are always blowing. You're cold. You're wet. You're uncomfortable
but you never sink. — Colin Powell

The same wind blows on us all; the winds of disaster, opportunity and change. Therefore, it is not the blowing of the wind, but the setting of the sails that will determine our direction in life. — Jim Rohn

In the pale light of daybreak the gravestones looked like so many white sails that would never again be filled with wind, sails that, too long unused and heavily drooping, had been turned into stone just as they were. The boats' anchors had been thrust so deeply into the dark earth that they could never again be raised. — Yukio Mishima

The beauty of the concept is that it takes the wind out of so many would-be ethical sails: the company that owns the porn-mag owns the company that makes the washing powder. The company that owns the munitions plants owns the company that makes the budgerigar food. The company that owns the nuclear waste owns the company that picks up your trash. These days, thanks to me, unless you pack up and go and live in a cave, you're putting money into evil and shit. And let's be realistic, if the cost of ethics is life in a cave ... — Glen Duncan

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

False faith is the major cause of most of our misfortunes. The purpose of a human life is to bring the irrational beginning of our life to a rational beginning. In order to succeed in this, two things are important: (1) to see all irrational, unwise things in life and direct your attention to them and study them; (2) to understand the possibility of a rational, wise life. The major purpose of all teachers of mankind was the understanding of the irrational and rational beginnings in our life. We should be ready to change our views at any time, and slough off prejudices, and live with an open and receptive mind. A sailor who sets the same sails all the time, without making changes when the wind changes, will never reach his harbor. - HENRY GEORGE Accept the teaching of Christ as it is, clear and simple; then you will see that we live among big lies. — Leo Tolstoy

"Nature" is not to be understood as that which is just present-at-hand, nor as the power of Nature. The wood is a forest of timber, the mountain a quarry of rock; the river is water-power, the wind is wind 'in the sails'. As the 'environment' is discovered, the 'Nature' thus discovered is encountered too. If its kind of Being as ready-to-hand is disregarded, this 'Nature' itself can be discovered and defined simply in its pure presence-at-hand. But when this happens, the Nature which 'stirs and strives', which assails us and enthralls us as landscape, remains hidden. The botanist's plants are not the flowers of the hedgerow; the 'source' which the geographer establishes for a river is not the 'springhead in the dale'. — Martin Heidegger

Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.
Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward, — Kahlil Gibran

We cannot organize revival, but we can set our sails to catch the wind from Heaven when God chooses to blow upon His people once again — G. Campbell Morgan

you can't control the wind, but you can adjust your sails. It was his way of reminding us that you can't control most of what happens in life. You can only control your reaction to it. — Kristen Proby

The music enchanted the air. It was like the south wind, like a warm night, like swelling sails beneath the stars, completely and utterly unreal ... It made everything spacious and colourful, the dark stream of life seemed pulsing in it; there were no burdens any more, no limits; there existed only glory and melody and love, so that one simply could not realize that, at the same time as this music was, outside there ruled poverty and torment and despair. — Erich Maria Remarque

The passion for the story is the wind in your narrative sails. Begin at the heart. We must hear the heartbeat of the story. Love your characters into existence. — Patricia Lee Gauch

One good reason for the popularity of "reductionism" among the philosophical outposts of the Western Establishment is that it can be, and is, used as a device for trying to take the wind, so to speak, out of the sails of Marxism ... In essence reductionism is a kind of anti-Marxist caricature of Marxist determinism. It is what anti-Marxists pretend that Marxist determinism is. — Claud Cockburn

The rain had abated. The sails were hoisted, and the barrels we had placed everywhere filled with that precious gift from the sky. Calm reigned during a botched dawn in which pitch black shaded off into dark grey. Isolated sunrays pierced the clouds to shed light on a terribly flat sea like a lake of tar. Far, very far away, cracked muted peals of thunder. The storm approached quickly, lightning streaking the leaden ceiling while the sea shivered and quivered under a fresh wind. — Jeff VanderMeer

Hope has no feathers
Hope takes flight
tethered with twine
like a tattered kite,
slave to the wind's
capricious drift
eager to soar
but needing lift

Hope waits stubbornly
watching the sky
for turmoil, feeding on
things that fly:
crows, ashes, newspapers,
dry leaves in flight
all suggest wind
that could lift a kite

Hope sails and plunges
firmly caught
at the end of her string -
fallen slack, pulling taught,
ragged and featherless.
Hope never flies
but doggedly watches
for windy skies. — Elizabeth Wein

I am not the Juliet to his Romeo.
I am not the lodestar around which he orbits.
I am not the trade wind by which he sets the course of his sails.
I am not essential or exceptional.

I was his Monday girl.
Shitty, really, since he was my whole damn week. — Julie Johnson

When you can't change the direction of the wind - adjust your sails — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

This is the day of wonders. The land is covered with trees like a head with hair and behind the ship the sun rises tipping the top trees with light. The sky is clear and shining as a china plate and the water playfully ruffled with wind. Every wisp of fog is gone and the air is full of the resinous smell of the trees. Seabirds are flashing above the sails golden like creatures from Heaven, but the sailors raise a few shots to keep them from the rigging. — Alice Munro

Destiny guides our fortunes more favorably than we could have expected. Look there, Sancho Panza, my friend, and see those thirty or so wild giants, with whom I intend to do battle and kill each and all of them, so with their stolen booty we can begin to enrich ourselves. This is nobel, righteous warfare, for it is wonderfully useful to God to have such an evil race wiped from the face of the earth."
"What giants?" Asked Sancho Panza.
"The ones you can see over there," answered his master, "with the huge arms, some of which are very nearly two leagues long."
"Now look, your grace," said Sancho, "what you see over there aren't giants, but windmills, and what seems to be arms are just their sails, that go around in the wind and turn the millstone."
"Obviously," replied Don Quijote, "you don't know much about adventures. — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

May the wind under your wings bear you where the sun sails and the moon walks. — J.R.R. Tolkien

When you do a record like 'Talk,' and you're happy with it, and it reaches your ambitions and then doesn't sell as well as you wanted, it kind of takes the wind out of your sails a little. — Trevor Rabin

She stood in the storm, & when the wind did not blow her away, she adjusted her sails. — Elizabeth Edwards

its Easy for going with every wind but if go the wrong direction, we ourselves will have to embarked the sails tightening for to go in a different and Good direction. — Jan Jansen

When your life feels like you're on a sailboat, with no wind to fill your sails, there are still choices. You can drop anchor and enjoy your surroundings. Start your motor, if you have one. Grab an oar and start paddling, or wait for the wind to fill your sails once again. There are always other choices while crossing the ocean of life ... — James A. Murphy

The winds of grace blow all the time. All we need to do is set our sails. — Ramakrishna

A ship, like a human being, moves best when it is slightly athwart the wind, when it has to keep its sails tight and attend its course. Ships, like men, do poorly when the wind is directly behind, pushing them sloppily on their way so that no care is required in steering or in the management of sails; the wind seems favorable, for it blows in the direction one is heading, but actually it is destructive because it induces a relaxation in tension and skill. What is needed is a wind slightly opposed to the ship, for then tension can be maintained, and juices can flow and ideas can germinate, for ships, like men, respond to challenge. — James A. Michener

press-ganged', 'taking the wind out of your sails', 'shot across the bows', 'loose cannon', 'shipshape', 'batten down the hatches' belong more obviously to the sea. Others such as 'close quarters', 'cut and run', 'fathoming' something, 'broad in the beam' and the 'cut of your jib' take a moment — Ben Wilson

Bilbo's Last Song

Day is ended, dim my eyes,
But journey long before me lies.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship's beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
Beyond the sunset leads my way.
Foam is salt, the wind is free;
I hear the rising of the Sea.

Farewell, friends! The sails are set,
The wind is east, the moorings fret.
Shadows long before me lie,
Beneath the ever-bending sky,
But islands lie behind the Sun
That I shall raise ere all is done;
Lands there are to west of West,
Where night is quiet and sleep is rest.

Guided by the Lonely Star,
Beyond the utmost harbour-bar,
I'll find the heavens fair and free,
And beaches of the Starlit Sea.
Ship, my ship! I seek the West,
And fields and mountains ever blest.
Farewell to Middle-earth at last.
I see the Star above my mast! — J.R.R. Tolkien

I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full. — Arthur Ashe

The effect of sailing is produced by a judicious arrangement of the sails to the direction of the wind. — William Falconer

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

When I meet a wind I cannot fight , I can do naught but set my sails to let it take me where it will. — Susanna Kearsley

I just about prevent myself from laughing, but the information that coffee is basically faery Viagra just totally took the wind out of my sails. — Liz De Jager

The hope of heaven under troubles is like wind and sails to the soul. — Samuel Rutherford

Wisdom sails with wind and time. — John Florio

Depression has its degrees which should be clearly marked. There is an absolute depression, when the very foundation of the psychic mechanism is damaged by pressures and we find it very difficult to recover the joy of life. Quite different is a temporary depression which may, at times, be quite poorly directed, like a wind into the human sails. In order to distinguish between the two we might use the test of human reaction to a material improvement. — Valerian Pidmohylny

You cannot change the wind, but you can adjust the sails. — Elizabeth Edwards

You run the risk, whenever you build your story around a central mystery, of either letting it go too long, or revealing it too soon and then taking the wind out of the sails of the narrative. — Jeff Lemire

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

If I did not see that the Lord kept watch over the ship, I should long since have abandoned the helm. But I see Him! - through the storm, strengthening the tackling, handling the yards, spreading the sails - yes more, commanding the very winds! Should I not be a coward if I abandoned my post? Let Him govern, let Him carry us forward, let Him hasten or delay; we will fear nothing! — Martin Luther

It seems whenever we have a little adversity, the emotions drop. We've fallen out of the race, and it kind of takes the wind out of your sails. — Wes Walz

The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide. — Joseph Conrad

If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable. — Seneca.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. Do not make yourself ill with overwhelm. There is a tendency to fall into being weakened by perseverating on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. — Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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

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

I had been feeling a little rum. I didn't think it was anything serious because years ago I felt a lump and it was benign. I assumed this would be too. It kind of takes the wind out of your sails, and I don't know what the future holds, if anything. — Maggie Smith

Top 10 Reasons to Establish Written Goals for Your Life 10. Written goals strengthen your character by promoting a long-term perspective. 9. Written goals allow you to lead your life as opposed to simply managing it. 8. Written goals provide internal, permanent, and consistent motivation. 7. Written goals help you stay focused - to concentrate on what's most important. 6. Written goals enhance your decision-making ability. 5. Written goals simultaneously require and build self-confidence. 4. Written goals help you create the future in advance. 3. Written goals help you to control changes - to adjust your sails, to work with the wind rather than against it. 2. Written goals heighten your awareness of opportunities that are consistent with your goals. 1. And finally, the most important benefit of setting effective goals is the person you become as a result of the pursuit! — Tommy Newberry

Weirdly, I was still trying to be the older brother, and trying to get him [ Tom Berninger] to try to be more like me a little bit. Or not be more like me but ... I was frustrated that he sometimes let things stop him in his life, and he let the wind get knocked out of his sails a few times. — Matt Berninger

In a matter of seconds, the sky darkened and the first fat drops of rain splashed around us. We went from table to table to gather our guests, smiling to mask our nervousness as the wind blew harder. As I watched the empty chairs overturning and the linens on the grape arbor flapping like sails, I was seized with a sudden fear. The wind whipped the trees; the creak of branches presaged the first sharp flash of lightning, followed by a thunder crack that set my heart pounding. — Rosie Genova

Wisdom, health, life and love cannot be found in trying to control the wind, but rather in harnessing the wind in the sails of receptive engagement of the present moment. — Martin Laird

I do know that when my children are older and telling their own children about their grandmother, they will be able to say that she stood in the storm ... and when the wind did not blow her way - - and it surely has not - - she adjusted her sails. — Elizabeth Edwards

Since you are now studying geometry and trigonometry, I will give you a problem. A ship sails the ocean. It left Boston with a cargo of wool. It grosses 200 tons. It is bound for Le Havre. The mainmast is broken, the cabin boy is on deck, there are 12 passengers aboard, the wind is blowing East-North-East, the clock points to a quarter past three in the afternoon. It is the month of May. How old is the captain? — Gustave Flaubert

The wind whipped up and I listened for ship sails snapping in the harbor cross the road, a place I'd smelled on the breeze, but never seen. The sails would go off like whips cracking and all us would listen to see was it some slave getting flogged in a neighbor-yard or was it ships making ready to leave. You found out when the screams started up or not. — Sue Monk Kidd

Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us, and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers that they carry our boats, or winds that they be favoring and fill our sails, or meats that they be nourishing; for these are what they are necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us; but they know it not. — Ben Jonson