In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent.

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.

I don't like work... but I like what is in work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - which no other man can ever know.

I have wrestled with death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine. It takes place in an impalpable greyness, with nothing underfoot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamour, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat, in a sickly atmostphere of tepid scepticism, without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.

The discovery of America was the occasion of the greatest outburst of cruelty and reckless greed known in history.

For there is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea itself, which is the mistress of his existence.

I remember my youth... the feeling that I could last forever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men.