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"The more technology we add, the more likely we are to get ourselves into a situation where that stuff absolutely must work, and the less likely it is that we will be able to manage safely without it."

"Sharing the wisdom of the high seas, with those wise enough to seek it out."

"I wasn't a yachtsman, I was a seaman. That was the difference."

"The word 'experienced' often refers to someone who's gotten away with doing the wrong thing more frequently than you have."

"Decision is the hardest part — execution is easy." Robin's consistent philosophy across every venture, from the Golden Globe to the Clipper Race, is that once the decision is made, the obstacles largely dissolve. He doesn't agonize; he acts. "The thinking about it is the hard part. It's much easier to make the decision and get on with it."

"The single most important thing you can do, by far and bar none, to become a safe and happy offshore cruiser is to go to sea as crew with an experienced skipper on a good boat. No amount of inshore sailing or reading replaces this vital step on the road to becoming a competent offshore sailor."

"I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth, a nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea."

"True riches cannot be bought...There is no buying the night flight with its hundred thousand stars, it's serenity, it's few hours of sovereignty."

"I'm in the Northwest Passage, I'm cold, I'm wet a lot, I'm hungry, I'm sleep deprived, like properly sleep deprivation at times. I had every right and reason to be miserable, right? Cold, wet, tired, hungry, and miserable. But being miserable was not going to give me sleep. It's not going to give me a warm meal. It wasn't gonna give me a hot shower. It wasn't gonna give me any of those things. So you might as well enjoy the moment, you know?"

"If you're going to build anything that endures, it's got to have a really clear purpose, a really great sense of belonging, and a sense of belief as well."

"It must be remembered that on long offshore passages a well-built and well-equipped boat will stand up to much more rough weather than will the crew."

"A lot of risk comes from trying to speed things up. A lack of patience changes the outcome."

"I knew that weather can turn concrete plans into vague abstractions, but that's no reason to forgo the pleasure of laying them."

"Sail training continues to become more valuable because it is an opportunity to help people unplug from society and experience nature, the environment, and each other in a way that is irreplaceable."

"In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness."

"The 3 most important things are attitude, attitude, and attitude. Because if the attitude is right, you survive and you learn everything you don't need to learn."

"We all have to humble ourselves and realize that we've all made bad decisions. Now, most of us get away with them."

"If you want to sail around the world to say that you've done it, well, don't do it because you have the wrong attitude. If you really, really want to do something because you love the ocean, you want to see the world as it is still now before it is too late, then do it."

"You've got it in you, alright, everyone's got it in them, it isn't a special dispensation from a selective Providence. It is just a question of whether you have the guts to apply it. It struck me that I must be pretty dumb, for most people come by it naturally, but I had to sail across thousands of miles of ocean to find out that courage is the key to living."

"Cause without the bitter, baby, the sweet ain't as sweet."