It is a maudlin and indecent verity that comes out through the strength of wine.

It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog.

The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.

Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters.

Going home must be like going to render an account.

It is to be remarked that a good many people are born curiously unfitted for the fate waiting them on this earth.

A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperienced people endeavor to do, he drowns.

As in political so in literary action a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices and the consistent narrowness of his outlook.

A man's most open actions have a secret side to them.

A man's real life is that accorded to him in the thoughts of other men by reason of respect or natural love.

A modern fleet of ships does not so much make use of the sea as exploit a highway.

Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.

As to honor - you know - it's a very fine mediaeval inheritance which women never got hold of. It wasn't theirs.

Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation.

I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but as far as it was possible for a man to go.

Nations it may be have fashioned their Governments, but the Governments have paid them back in the same coin.

The last thing a woman will consent to discover in a man whom she loves, or on whom she simply depends, is want of courage.

There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea.

To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.