Sail Quotes - page 8
... the mighty Knight who set sail in the most western part of Europe and there in the Orient (where the infant Sun gives its first light) set the standard of the Holy Escutcheons. He punished the evil tyrant and won the city of the Golden Kingdom of Malaya through his strength and skill, and with pious example transformed the profane mosque into a sacred temple. ...The time is coming, King Afonso VI, when holy Zion will have its freedom through you. And the Monarchy, consecrated by Heaven for eternity, that well-born plant which flowering will give fruit to Christendom, the theme of a thousand swans, singing about you as they immortalize themselves with you. Titus avenged the unjust death of Christ by the total destruction of Jerusalem; and God has chosen you to whom he gave an unconquerable heart to be the Avenger of His Faith. Take up the staff, then, when Heaven bids you march against the false worship of the Muslims, a worthy enterprise for your courage.
Francisco de Sá de Meneses
Since the dawn of history the negro has owned the continent of Africa - rich beyond the dream of poet's fancy, crunching acres of diamonds beneath his bare black feet. Yet he never picked one up from the dust until a white man showed to him its glittering light. His land swarmed with powerful and docile animals, yet he never dreamed a harness, cart, or sled. A hunter by necessity, he never made an axe, spear, or arrowhead worth preserving beyond the moment of its use. He lived as an ox, content to graze for an hour. In a land of stone and timber he never sawed a foot of lumber, carved a block, or built a house save of broken sticks and mud. With league on league of ocean strand and miles of inland seas, for four thousand years he watched their surface ripple under the wind, heard the thunder of the surf on his beach, the howl of the storm over his head, gazed on the dim blue horizon calling him to worlds that lie beyond, and yet he never dreamed a sail!
Charles Darwin
Some say cavalry and others claim
infantry or a fleet of long oars
is the supreme sight on the black earth.
I say it is
the one you love. And easily proved.
Didn't Helen, who far surpassed all
mortals in beauty, desert the best
of men, her king,
and sail off to Troy and forget
her daughter and her dear parents? Merely
Aphrodite's gaze made her readily bend
and led her far
from her path. These tales remind me now
of Anaktoria who isn't here,
yet I
for one
would rather see her warm supple step
and the sparkle in her face than watch all
the chariots in Lydia and foot soldiers armored
in glittering bronze.
Sappho
You know a dream is like a river,
Ever changin' as it flows.
And a dreamer's just a vessel
That must follow where it goes.
Trying to learn from what's behind you,
And never knowing what's in store
Makes each day a constant battle
Just to stay between the shores...andI will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry.
Like a bird upon the wind,
These waters are my sky.
I'll never reach my destination
If I never try.
So I will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry.
Garth Brooks
I am not a yachting person, by nature, but I have just enough experience on the sea under sail to feel a certain nostalgia for it when I see a big white racing yacht heeled over at cruising speed on the ocean, and I can still tie a mean bowline knot on just about anything in less than 10 seconds.
Hunter S. Thompson
