Quotes from Joshua Slocum

I knew now that I had put a world behind me, and that I was opening out another world ahead. I had passed the haunts of savages. Great piles of granite mountains of bleak and lifeless aspect were now astern ;

It was the 13th of the month, and 13 is my lucky number

They have great reason to love their country and to fear the white man's yoke, for once harnessed to the plow, their life would no longer be a poem.

The officers who are over-sure, and "know it all like a book," are the ones, I have observed, who wreck the most ships and lose the most lives.

It was the nearest to a casualty on the Spray in her whole course, so far as I know. The young man having come on board with compliments made the mishap most embarrassing.

To young men contemplating a voyage I would say go.

I was born in the breezes, and I had studied the sea as perhaps few men have studied it, neglecting all else.

They made a shrewd guess that I could give them some useful information, and they were the first to meet me. Some one said they came to arrest me, and - well, let it go at that.

Good work in the building of my vessel stood me always in good stead.

To be taken into account were some years of schooling, where I studied with diligence Neptune's laws, and these laws I tried to obey when I sailed overseas; it was worth the while.

The days pass happily with me wherever my ship sails.