Bernard Moitessier Quotes
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I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth, a nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea.
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I hate storms, but calms undermine my spirits.
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There are two terrible things for a man: not to have fulfilled his dream, and to have fulfilled it.
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The questions that used to bother me at times, do not weigh anything before the immensity of a wake so close to the sky and filled with the wind of the sea.
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I can only give them my first log, with birds, sea, daily sights and little everyday problems. My real log is written in the sea and sky; it can’t be photographed and given to others. It has gradually come to life out of all that has surrounded us for months: the sounds of water on the hull, the sounds of wind gliding on the sails, the silences full of secret things between my boat and me, like the times I spent as a child listening to the forest talk.
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You do not ask a tame seagull why it needs to disappear from time to time toward the open sea. It goes, that's all.
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My real log is written in the sea and sky; the sails talking with the rain and the stars amid the sounds of the sea, the silences full of secret things between my boat and me, like the times I spent as a child listening to the forest talk.
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One thing at a time, as in the days when I was building Joshua. If I had wanted to build all the boat at once, the enormity of the task would have crushed me. I had to put all I had into the hull alone, without thinking about the rest. It would follow . . . with the help of the gods. Sailing non-stop around the world is the same. I do not think anyone has the means of pulling it off—at the start.
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An hour later my porpoises are back. Two of them start spinning in the air like corkscrews. I rush to get the camera, stowed in its locker—too late; they are leaving already. I am as disgusted as if I had dropped an anchor without shackling it to its chain. After missing the terrific shot of the barracuda catching the flying fish in mid-air, I had sworn to leave the Beaulieu in the cockpit during fair weather, all set to go, with a cloth to protect it from the sun. But that is not enough. I am starting to realize that I too need to be protected from the camera. In the beginning, I thought that you just set the lens and released the shutter. It is not like that at all. You have to give the camera something more. And now it is trying to suck my blood. It would be easy to stuff the camera in a waterproof tank and forget it exists, but it is too late—and in any case I am not sorry.
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When a great adventure is launched with a powerful thrust, fatigue in the muscles and doubts in the mind are swept away by a fullness that moves life along like a breath from the depths of the soul.
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A sailor's joys are as simple as a child's.