Boating

Boating is the leisurely activity of traveling by boat, or the recreational use of a boat whether powerboats, sailboats, or man-powered vessels (such as rowing and paddle boats), focused on the travel itself, as well as sports activities, such as fishing or water skiing. It is a popular activity, and there are millions of boaters worldwide.

Sourced

• Row, row, row your boat,
  Gently down the stream.
  Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
  Life is but a dream.
  • "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", an anonymous nursery rhyme dating back to at least 1852; listed as Song #19236 the Roud Folk Song Index.

• Like the watermen that row one way and look another.
  • Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Democritus to the Reader.

• On the ear
  Drops the light drip of the suspended oar.
  • Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto III (1816), Stanza 86.

• All in the golden afternoon
  Full leisurely we glide;
  For both our oars, with little skill,
  By little arms are plied,
  While little hands make vain pretense
  Our wanderings to guide.
  • Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), opening poem, first stanza.

• And all the way, to guide their chime,
  With falling oars they kept the time.
  • Andrew Marvell, Bermudas (1657).

• Learn of the little nautilus to sail,
  Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle III, line 177.

• The oars were silver:
  Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke.
  • William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1600s), Act II, scene 2, line 199.

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 74-75.

• Oh, swiftly glides the bonnie boat,
  Just parted from the shore,
  And to the fisher's chorus-note,
  Soft moves the dipping oar!
  • Joanna Baillie, Song, Oh, Swiftly glides the Bonnie Boat.

• But oars alone can ne'er prevail
  To reach the distant coast;
  The breath of Heaven must swell the sail,
  Or all the toil is lost.
  • William Cowper, Human Frailty, Stanza 6.

• We lie and listen to the hissing waves,
  Wherein our boat seems sharpening its keel,
  Which on the sea's face all unthankful graves
  An arrowed scratch as with a tool of steel.
  • John Davidson, In a Music-Hall and Other Poems, For Lovers, line 17.

• The Owl and the Pussy-Cat went to sea
  In a beautiful pea-green boat.
  • Edward Lear, The Owl and the Pussy-Cat.

• Like the watermen who advance forward while they look backward.
  • Michel de Montaigne, Book II, Chapter XXIX, Of Profit and Honesty.

• Faintly as tolls the evening chime,
  Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time,
  Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
  We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn;
  Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
  The rapids are near and the daylight's past!
  • Thomas Moore, Canadian Boat Song.

• Gracefully, gracefully glides our bark
  On the bosom of Father Thames,
  And before her bows the wavelets dark
  Break into a thousand gems.
  • Thomas Noel, A Thames Voyage.

• Like watermen who look astern while they row the boat ahead.
  • Plutarch, Whether 'twas rightfully said, Live concealed.