The Long Way Quotes

“There are two terrible things for a man: not to have fulfilled his dream, and to have fulfilled it.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“its normal pace, even with the threat of a gale. How long will it last, this peace I have found at sea? It is all of life that I contemplate—sun, clouds, time that passes and abides. Occasionally it is also that other world, foreign now, that I left centuries ago. The modern, artificial world where man has been turned into a money-making machine to satisfy false needs, false joys.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“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. 1”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“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.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“A sailor’s joys are as simple as a child’s.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way: Sheridan House Maritime Classic

“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.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“I hate storms, but calms undermine my spirits.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“On ne demande pas à une mouette apprivoisée pourquoi elle éprouve le besoin de disparaître de temps en temps vers la pleine mer. Elle y va, c’est tout, et c’est aussi simple qu’un rayon de soleil, aussi normal que le bleu du ciel.”
― Bernard Moitessier, Longue route (ne) (La): SEUL ENTRE MERS ET CIELS

“I spend my time reading, sleeping, eating. The good, quiet life, with nothing to do. And little by little the water tank fills up.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“People often imagine that sailors are a breed of supermen; that we almost never sleep, spend all our time handling sails, never get a hot meal. If they only knew!”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“How long will it last, this peace I have found at sea? It is all of life that I contemplate—sun, clouds, time that passes and abides.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way: Sheridan House Maritime Classic

“If I do have to sight land, I like it to be from as far off as possible.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way: Sheridan House Maritime Classic

“Beaucoup de gens croient que la pelleteuse et la bétonneuse ne pensent pas. ces gens se trompent: elles pensent.
Elles pensent que si elles ne travaillent pas, elles ne gagneraient pas d'Argent, et qu'alors leurs esclaves ne pourraient plus acheter l'huile et l'essence sont elles ont besoin pour vivre et continuer à penser aux choses sérieuses”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“(...) Si un marchand pouvait éteindre les étoiles pour que ses panneaux publicitaires se voient mieux dans la nuit, peut-être le ferait-il.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“I am neither happy nor sad, neither really tense nor really relaxed. Perhaps that is the way it is when a man gazes at the stars, asking himself questions he is not mature enough to answer. So one day he is happy, the next a bit sad without knowing why. It is a little like the horizon: for all your distinctly seeing sky and sea come together on the same line, for all your constantly making for it, the horizon stays at the same distance, right at hand and out of reach.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way: Sheridan House Maritime Classic

“I felt such a need to rediscover the wind of the high sea, nothing else counted at that moment, neither earth nor men. All Joshua and I wanted was to be left alone with ourselves. Any other thing did not exist, had never existed. 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, and it is as simple as a ray of sunshine, as normal as the blue of the sky.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“At times, he heard the ‘call’ with every fibre of his being. For some time, I have been hearing it too. And that, perhaps, is the long way.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“concentrating on a magnetized needle prevents one from participating in the real universe, seen and unseen, where a sailboat moves.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“Je prends le globe du Damien et regarde longuement l’immense boucle tracée depuis le départ. Plymouth si près, dix mille milles à peine vers le nord… mais partir de Plymouth pour rentrer à Plymouth, c’est devenu au fil du temps comme partir de nulle part pour aller nulle part. C’est formidable, ce petit globe que je tiens dans mes mains !

Et nous sommes seuls, mon bateau et moi. Seuls avec la mer immense pour nous tout seuls.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“my back has started acting up, probably due to a weakening of the muscles along the spine,”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“The days go by, never monotonous. Even when they appear exactly alike they are never quite the same. That is what gives life at sea its special dimension, made up of contemplation and very simple contrasts. Sea, winds, calms, sun clouds, porpoises. Peace, and the joy of being alive in harmony.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“When you have seen the eddies caused by salinity differences in the Panama locks, one prefers to give a wide berth to similar phenomena when they are on an oceanic scale.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“Man is always the strongest.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“When Henry and I had had to work out a really sticky problem together, neither of us was allowed to mention it. No bursting out with ‘Say, I’ve got an idea! What do you think of this? . . .’ It was not allowed, because the thing had not matured enough, and putting forth an idea that was not worked out in detail wasted the other’s time and kept him from letting it ‘ripen’.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way

“. . . but leaving from Plymouth and returning to Plymouth now seems like leaving from”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way: Sheridan House Maritime Classic

“I think that a boat big enough to carry lots of food and spares could circle the globe several times, relying only on rain.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way: Sheridan House Maritime Classic

“Joshua drives towards the Horn under the light of the stars and the somewhat distant tenderness of the moon. Pearls run off the staysail; you want to hold them in your hand, they are real precious stones that live only in the eyes. The wake spins out very far behind up the slopes of the seas like a tongue of fire and the close-reefed sails stand out against the clear sky, with the moon making the sea on the quarter glisten. White reflection of the southern ice. Broad greenish patches of foam on the water. Pointed tooth-like seas masking the horizon, dull rumbling of the bow struggling and playing with the sea.

The entire sea is white and the sky as well. I no longer know how far I have got, except that we long ago left the borders of too much behind.”
― Bernard Moitessier, The Long Way