I have a right to be blind sometimes.

Duty is the great business of a sea officer; all private considerations must give way to it, however painful it may be.

I cannot, if I am in the field of glory, be kept out of sight: wherever there is anything to be done, there Providence is sure to direct my steps.

First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can.

Buonaparte has often made his boast that our fleet would be worn out by keeping the sea and that his was kept in order and increasing by staying in port; but know he finds, I fancy, if Emperors hear the truth, that his fleet suffers more in a night than ours in one year.

The politics of courts are so mean that private people would be ashamed to act in the same way; all is trick and finesse, to which the common cause is sacrificed.

In Sea affairs, nothing is impossible, and nothing is improbable.