A huge collection of the best sea quotes and inspiring sayings about the ocean. Perfect for inspiration and mindful moments.
Quotes about the sea
Quotes are inspiring for many reasons. They give us inspiration and consolation when we're feeling down or struggling with a problem.
Quotes give us new perspectives on things, and can encourage us to do something that we've been meaning to do but maybe haven't had the energy to start yet.
This collection of sea quotes covers everything sea related – sea quotes, sea love quotes, sea captions and sea life quotes. Each quote has a picture that is connected in some way to the sea or to water.
Do you love the sea? “Thalassophile (n) A lover of the sea, someone who loves the sea/ocean.”
Sea Captions and Quotes
“Smell the sea and feel the sky. Let your soul and spirit fly.”
– Van Morrison
“You can never cross the ocean until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.”
– Christopher Columbus
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
– Mark Twain
“Dance with the waves, move with the sea. Let the rhythm of the water set your soul free.”
– Christy Ann Martine
“To me, the sea is a continual miracle; The fishes that swim–the rocks–the motion of the waves–the ships, with men in them, What stranger miracles are there?”
– Walt Whitman
“Would you learn the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers, comprehend its mystery!”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“That the sea is one of the most beautiful and magnificent sights in Nature, all admit.”
– John Joly
“The sea always filled her with longing, though for what she was never sure.”
– Cornelia Funke
“At night, when the sky is full of stars and the sea is still you get the wonderful sensation that you are floating in space.”
– Natalie Wood
“When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
Related: Best Sky Captions
Hashtags to use with sea and ocean quotes
Already found a quote you want to use? Here's some sea hashtags you might want to use:
#ocean #sea #seaquotes #oceanquotes #quotesaboutthesea #oceaninstagramcaptions #travelquotes #instagramcaptions #oceanlife #oceancaptions #ocean_captions #oceanlove #theoceancaptions #sealifequotes
Related: Boat Instagram Captions
Sea and Ocean quotes and sayings
Here's the next selection of quotes that are perfect if you love the sea.
“I ‘m on the sea! I ‘m on the sea! I am where I would ever be, With the blue above and the blue below, And silence wheresoever I go.”
-Bryan Procter
“The sea is a desert of waves, A wilderness of water.”
– Langston Hughes
“To me, the sea is like a person — like a child that I’ve known a long time. It sounds crazy, I know, but when I swim in the sea I talk to it. I never feel alone when I’m out there.”
– Gertrude Ederle
“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.”
– Karen Blixen
“See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me. And no one knows, how far it goes.”
– Moana, “How Far I’ll Go”
“With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you’re connected to the sea. No matter where on Earth you live.”
– Sylvia Earle
“Take me to the ocean. Let me sail the open sea. To breathe the warm and salty air and dream of things to be.”
– Erica Billups
“We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came…”
– John F. Kennedy
“Limitless and immortal, the waters are the beginning and end of all things on earth.”
– Heinrich Zimmer
“My soul is full of longing for the secrets of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The best short quotes about the sea
Here's our next 10 sea quotes for your inspiration and creativity.
“I wanted freedom, open air and adventure. I found it on the sea.”
– Alain Gerbeault
“The sea does not like to be restrained.”
– Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief
“And the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home.”
– Larry Ferguson
“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), it’s always our self we find in the sea.”
– E. E. Cummings
“The sea possesses a power over one’s moods that has the effect of a will. The sea can hypnotize. Nature in general can do so.”
– Henrik Ibsen
“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean.”
– Arthur C. Clarke
“A pool just isn’t the same as the ocean. It has no energy. No life.”
– Linda Gerber
“I must be a mermaid. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.”
– Anais Nin
“The ocean makes me feel really small and it makes me put my whole life into perspective.”
– Beyoncé Knowles
Ocean Quotes and Sayings
There's something about the sea that fills us with a sense of awe and freedom, so here's the next section of ocean quotes for you to enjoy.
“The ocean has always been a salve to my soul…the best thing for a cut or abrasion was to go swimming in salt water. Later down the road of life, I made the discovery that salt water was also good for the mental abrasions one inevitably acquires on land.”
– Jimmy Buffet
“The ocean is everything I want to be. Beautiful, mysterious, wild and free.”
– Unknown
“In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.”
– Kahlil Gibran
“The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach.”
Related: Short beach captions for Instagram
– Henry Beston
“Why is it that scuba divers and surfers are some of the strongest advocates of ocean conservation? Because they’ve spent time in and around the ocean, and they’ve personally seen the beauty, the fragility, and even the degradation of our planet’s blue heart.”
– Sylvia Earle
“Every time I slip into the ocean, it’s like going home.”
– Sylvia Earle
“Eternity begins and ends with the ocean’s tides.”
– Unknown
“The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul.”
– Robert Wyland
“Wish I was ocean size”
– Jane's Addiction
“She loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.”
– Holly Black
“Life is like the ocean, it goes up and down.”
– Vanessa Paradis
“Being out there in the ocean – God's creation – it's like a gift he has given us to enjoy.”
– Bethany Hamilton
“Ocean is more ancient than the mountains and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time.”
– H. P. Lovecraft
“Ocean: A body of water occupying two-thirds of a world made for man – who has no gills.”
– Ambrose Bierce
“Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.”
– Sarah Kay
“A beach is not only a sweep of sand, but shells of sea creatures, the sea glass, the seaweed, the incongruous objects washed up by the ocean.”
– Henry Grunwald
“Ocean separates lands, not souls.”
– Munia Khan
“Together we can face challenges as deep as the ocean and as high as the sky.”
– Sonia Gandhi
“Individually we are one drop. Together we are an ocean.”
– Ryunosuke Satoro
“If everyone could just live near the ocean, I think we’d all be happier. It’s hard to be down about anything knee-deep in the sand.”
– Crystal Woods
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
– Rumi
Sea and Ocean Puns
There's more than a few puns and quips that can be made using the sea and ocean. They'd also make good captions on Instagram.
Here's some that tickle us!
“All I need is a good dose of vitamin sea.”
“Seas the day.”
“I’m a true oceanholic.”
“Go with the flow.”
“I need to be seahabilitated.”
“Happier than a seagull with a French fry.”
“I was mermaid for this sea-sun.“
“Long time, no sea.”
“You are the only fish in the sea for me.”
“There's plenty more fish in the sea.”
“Sea la vie!”
“If there’s a will there’s a wave.”
“Sea you soon!”
“Sea you in the morning.”
“Seas the moment.”
“Advice from the Ocean: Be shore of yourself. Come out of your shell. Take time to coast. Avoid pier pressure. Sea life’s beauty. Don’t get so tide down on work that you miss out on life’s beautiful waves.”
More sea quotes and sea sayings!
We've collected a few more of our favorite sea quotes, sea sayings and sea puns to help you get inspired but don't stop there! Let us know in the comments your favorites too.
“The waves of the sea help me get back to me.”
– Jill Davis
“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A sailor is an artist whose medium is the wind.”
– Webb Chiles
“Follow the river and you will find the sea.”
– French Proverb
“Life is a sea of vibrant color. Jump in.”
– A.D. Posey
“The edge of the sea is a strange and beautiful place.”
– Rachel Carson
“Meet me where the sky touches the sea.”
– Jennifer Donnelly
“In still moments by the sea life seems large-drawn and simple. It is there we can see into ourselves.”
– Rolf Edberg
“Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought of which the sea would not be part.”
– Hermann Broch
Under the sea quotes
“The sea is an underwater museum still awaiting its visitors.”
– Phillip Diole
“We got no troubles, life is the bubbles, under the sea.” – The Little Mermaid, “Under the Sea”
“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realize that you’ve been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.”
– Dave Barry
Inspirational Quotes on the Sea
These quotes about the ocean should hopefully provide some much-needed inspiration, no matter what you're looking for.
“Nothing soothes the soul like a day by the ocean!”
“There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.”
– Lord Byron
“Let the waves carry you where the light cannot.”
– Mohit Kaushik
“The calming movement of the sea along with the restless ocean breeze gently caresses me creating a soothing trance which lulls me to a place of peace.”
– M. L. Borges, By The Sea
“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
– William James
“Ideals are like the stars: we never reach them, but like the mariners of the sea, we chart our course by them.”
– Carl Schurz
“We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.”
– Aristotle Onassis
“The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. … Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea.”
– Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.”
– Khalil Gibran
Insightful Wisdom Using The Sea As A Metaphor
“They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.”
– Francis Bacon
“I feel we are all islands – in a common sea.”
– Anne Morrow Lindbergh
“The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.”
– Jacques Yves Cousteau
“All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full.”
– King Solomon
“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”
– Mother Teresa
“It makes you feel small, but not in a bad way. Small because you realize you’re part of something bigger.”
– Lauren Myracle
“Water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing, in the end, can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone.” – Margaret Atwood
Quotes about Rough Seas
Some of these quotes about sailing in rough seas are insightful in that they can help us when we go through tough periods of our life.
“Rough seas make stronger sailors. Tough times build greater people.”
– Robin Sharma
“No matter how rough the sea, I refuse to sink.”
– Unknown
“But where, after all, would be the poetry of the sea were there no wild waves?” – Joshua Slocum
“Great sea captains are made in rough waters and deep seas.”
– Kathryn Kuhlman
“We are all in the same boat, in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty.”
– Gilbert K. Chesterton
“The human heart is like a ship on a stormy sea driven about by winds blowing from all four corners of heaven.”
– Martin Luther King
“The man who has experienced shipwreck shudders even at a calm sea.”
– Ovid
“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”
– Willa Cather
“Storms draw something out of us that calm seas don’t.”
– Bill Hybels
“Great people are not affected by each puff of wind that blows ill. Like great ships, they sail serenely on, in a calm sea or a great tempest.”
– George Washington
“As the sea is beautiful not only in calm but also in storm, so is happiness found not only in peace but also in strife.”
– Ivan Panin
“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning to sail my ship.”
– Louisa May Alcott
“What world lies beyond that stormy sea I do not know, but every ocean has a distant shore, and I shall reach it.”
– Cesare Pavese
“Family is a life jacket in the stormy sea of life.”
– J.K. Rowling
“Life’s roughest storms prove the strength of our anchors.”
– Unknown
“Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm.”
– Publilius Syrus
Philosophical Thoughts about the Sea and Life
“Time and tide wait for no man.”
– Saint Marher
“If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it.”
– Jonathan Winters
“Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.”
– Albert Schweitzer
“Life is as inexorable as the sea.”
– Thomas Wentworth Higginson
“Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.”
– Isaac Bashevis Singer
“Maybe life was like a sea, and all the people were like boats … Everybody who was born was cast into the sea. Winds would blow them in all directions. Tides would rise and turn, in their own rhythm. And the boats – they just went along as best they could, trying to find a harbor.”
– Cynthia Voigt
“Thought is the wind, knowledge is the sail, and mankind is the vessel.”
– August Hare
“To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
– William Arthur Ward
Being at one with the sea
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”
– Jon Kabat-Zan
“You never really know what’s coming. A small wave, or maybe a big one. All you can really do is hope that when it comes, you can surf over it, instead of drown in its monstrosity.” – Alysha Speer
“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”
– Jacques Yves Cousteau
“Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.”
– Robert Henri
“It isn’t that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better.”
– Sir Francis Drake
“The sea is as near as we come to another world.” – Anne Stevenson
“The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” – Kate Chopin
“Ships are safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for. So set sail on the stormy sea of love. You’re going to get soaked at times, but at least you’ll know you’re alive.”
– John A. Shedd
“The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths, it has its pearls too.” – Vincent van Gogh
“If you live a life of make-believe, your life isn't worth anything until you do something that does challenge your reality. And to me, sailing the open ocean is a real challenge because it's life or death.”
Morgan Freeman
The best sea quotes and captions
“So that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts, seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again.”
– Virginia Woolf
“Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean.”
– William Stafford
“The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being.”
– Vera Nazarian
“When anxious, uneasy, and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.”
– Rainer Maria Rilke
“The great sea makes one a great skeptic.”
– Richard Jefferies
“He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea.”
– George Herbert
“The ocean is a central image. It is the symbolism of a great journey.”
– Enya
“The sea lives in every one of us.”
– Robert Wyland
“Even castles made from sand fall to the ocean.”
-Jimi Hendrix
“A lot of people attack the sea. I make love to it.”
– Jacques Cousteau
“The sea complains upon a thousand shores.”
– Alexander Smith
“The sea appears all golden. Beneath the sun-lit sky.”
– Heinrich Heine
“At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much.”
– Robin Lee Graham
“Sometimes in the waves of change we find our true direction.”
A final few unattributed quotes about the sea
“I’m pretty sure my birthstone is a sea shell.” – Unknown
“I believe in the ocean curing all bad moods. I believe in the waves wiping away worries. I believe in seashells bringing good luck. I believe in toes in the sand grounding my soul.” – Unknown
“The sound and smell of the sea cleanses my soul.”
“Dear ocean, thank you for making us feel tiny, humble, inspired, and salty …all at once.”
“Our memories of the ocean will linger on, long after our footprints in the sand are gone.”
“The oceans roar is music to the soul.”
“Wild and free, just like the sea.”
“Life is simple: just add water.”
“We dream in colors borrowed from the sea.”
“Let the sea set you free.”
“Me and the ocean: Love at first sight.”
“High tides. Good vibes.”
Inspirational Ocean Quotes
“You, me and the sea.”
“Friends, sun, sand and sea. That sounds like a summer to me.”
“I am happy anywhere I can see the ocean.”
“The ocean is my happy place.”
“If you’re lucky enough to live by the sea, you’re lucky enough.”
“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.”
“A smooth sea never made a skilful sailor.”
“Dream higher than the sky and deeper than the ocean.”
“Things aren’t always as they appear on the surface.”
“In the waves of change, we find our direction.”
“Life is like the ocean. It can be calm or still, and rough or rigid, but in the end, it is always beautiful.”
“I lost my heart to the sea.”
“Our love is as deep as the ocean.”
“If you want to know how much I love you, count all the waves in the sea.”
“As the ocean is never full of water, so is the heart never full of love.”
“I love you more than there are grains of sand on the beach, fish in the sea, and waves in the ocean.”
“If the ocean can calm itself, so can you. We are both salt water mixed with air” Nayyirah Waheed
More Travel Quotes for Instagram and Pinterest
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[one-half]
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