Quote

Ships are like children: they need individual attention.

Ships are expendable; the whales are not.

My experience of ships is that on them one makes an interesting discovery about the world. One finds one can do without it completely.

You can never tell what ships are worth.

Admire a small ship, but put your freight in a large one; for the larger the load, the greater will be the profit upon profit.

There are more than one hundred thousand ships at sea carrying all the solids, liquids and gases that we need to live.

There are few industries as defiantly opaque as shipping. Even offshore bankers have not developed a system as intricately elusive as the flag of convenience, under which ships can fly the flag of a state that has nothing to do with its owner, cargo, crew, or route.

A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.

Seafarers are used to being exploited. At sea, the captain moans at chandlers who supply ships with green bananas that will never ripen; at fruit that goes moldy obscenely fast; at sub-standard meat.