JOHN MASEFIELD

The luck will alter and the star will rise.

In this life he laughs longest who laughs last.

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky; and all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.

Commonplace people dislike tragedy because they dare not suffer and cannot exult.

Since the printing press came into being, poetry has ceased to be the delight of the whole community of man; it has become the amusement and delight of the few.

It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries.

It is too maddening. I've got to fly off, right now, to some devilish navy yard, three hours in a seasick steamer, and after being heartily sick, I'll have to speak three times, and then I'll be sick coming home. Still, who would not be sick for England?

Once in a century a man may be ruined or made insufferable by praise. But surely once in a minute something generous dies for want of it.

There are few earthly things more beautiful than a university a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see.

Poetry is a mixture of common sense, which not all have, with an uncommon sense, which very few have.

Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain.

To most of us the future seems unsure. But then it always has been; and we who have seen great changes must have great hopes.

God warms his hands at man's heart when he prays.

What am I, Life? A thing of watery salt Held in cohesion by unresting cells, Which work they know not why, which never halt, Myself unwitting where their Master dwells?

All I ask is a tall ship and a star to sail her by.

Love is a flame to set the will on fire

Success is the brand on the brow of the man who aimed too low.

Life's battle is a conquest for the strong; The meaning shows in the defeated thing.

It ought to have gangsters, and aeroplanes and a lot of automatic pistols.

The days that make us happy make us wise

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.