Quotes from Richard Henry Dana Jr.

We must come down from our heights, and leave our straight paths, for the byways and low places of life, If we would learn truths by strong contrasts; and in hovels, in forecastles, and among our own outcasts in foreign lands, see what has been wrought upon our fellow-creatures by accident, hardship, or strife.

There is a witchery in the sea, its songs and stories, and in the mere sight of a ship, and the sailor's dress, especially to a young mind, which has done more to man navies, and fill merchantmen, than all the pressgangs of Europe.

Yet a sailor's life is at best, but a mixture of a little good with much evil, and a little pleasure with much pain. The beautiful is linked with the revolting, the sublime with the commonplace, and the solemn with the ludicrous.

The Californians are an idle, thriftless people, and can make nothing for themselves.

They seem to be a doomed people. The curse of a people calling themselves Christian, seems to follow them everywhere;

Let him then have powers commensurate with his utmost possible need, only let him be held strictly responsible for the exercise of them. Any other course would be injustice as well as bad policy

There is not so helpless and pitiable an object in the world as a landsman beginning a sailor's life.

work hard, live hard, die hard, and go to hell after all, would be hard indeed!

If California ever becomes a prosperous country, this bay will be the centre of its prosperity.

There is no prettier sight in the world than a full-rigged, clipper-built brig, sailing sharp on the wind.

Monterey, as far as my observation goes, is decidedly the pleasantest and most civilized-looking place in California.

We must come down from our heights, and leave our straight paths, for the byways and low places of life, if we would learn truths by strong contrasts; and in hovels, in forecastles, and among our own outcasts in foreign lands, see what has been wrought upon our fellow-creatures by accident, hardship, or vice. Two

A well man at sea has little sympathy with one who is seasick; he is too apt to be conscious of a comparison favorable to his own manhood.

With all my imperfections on my head," I joined the crew, and we hauled out into the stream, and came to anchor for the night.

A sailor's liberty is but for a day; yet while it lasts it is perfect.

As has often been said, a ship is like a lady's watch, always out of repair.

I almost feel as if I were lamenting the passing away of something loved and dear,—the boats, the Kanakas, the hides, my old shipmates! Death, change, distance, lend them a character which makes them quite another thing from the vulgar, wearisome toil of uninteresting, forced manual labor.

Our forecastle, as usual after a liberty-day, was a scene of tumult all night long, from the drunken ones. They had just got to sleep toward morning, when they were turned up with the rest, and kept at work all day in the water, carrying hides, their heads aching so that they could hardly stand. This is sailor's pleasure.

anything was better than the horrible state of things below. I remember very well going to the hatchway and putting my head down, when I was oppressed by nausea, and always being relieved immediately. It was an effectual emetic.

There is something in the first gray streaks stretching along the eastern horizon and throwing an indistinct light upon the face of the deep, which combines with the boundlessness and unknown depth of the sea around, and gives one a feeling of loneliness, of dread, and of melancholy foreboding, which nothing else in nature can. This gradually passes away as the light grows brighter, and when the sun comes up, the ordinary monotonous sea day begins.

I thought of our situation, living under a tyranny; of the character of the country we were in; of the length of the voyage, and of the uncertainty attending our return to America; and then, if we should return, of the prospect of obtaining justice and satisfaction for these poor men; and vowed that if God should ever give me the means, I would do something to redress the grievances and relieve the sufferings of that poor class of beings, of whom I then was one. The

One would say that, instead of a tendency to equality in human beings, the tendency is to make the most of inequalities, natural or artificial.

It was hurricane month, too, and we were just in the track of the tremendous hurricane of 1830, which swept the North Atlantic, destroying almost everything before it. The

Sailors will never be convinced that rum is a dangerous thing, by taking it away from them, and giving it to the officers; nor that, that temperance is their friend, which takes from them what they have always had, and gives them nothing in the place of it.