As usual I finish the day before the sea, sumptuous this evening beneath the moon, which writes Arab symbols with phosphorescent streaks on the slow swells. There is no end to the sky and the waters. How well they accompany sadness!

Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds along the pebbled shore of memory!

The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect.

When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.

The sea -- this truth must be confessed -- has no generosity. No display of manly qualities -- courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness -- has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power.

I hate to be near the sea, and to hear it roaring and raging like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind, struggling to be free, and ending just where it began.

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

The sea, washing the equator and the poles, offers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it... ''Beware of me,'' it says, ''but if you can hold me, I am the key to all the lands.''

There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.