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Britain's best bulwarks are her wooden walls.
Author: Thomas Augustine Arne
Source: Britain's Best Bulwarks
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Our ships were British oak,
And hearts of oak our men.
Author: Samuel James Arnold
Source: Death of Nelson
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The royal navy of England has ever been its greatest defence and
ornament; it is its ancient and natural strength; the floating
bulwark of the island.
Author: Sir William Blackstone
Source: Commentaries (vol. I, bk. I, ch. XIII)
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Cooped in their winged sea-girt citadel.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: Childe Harold (canto II, st. 28)
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Right--that will do for the marines.
Author: Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron)
Source: The Island (II, XXI)
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The wooden walls are the best walls of this kingdom.
Author: Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry
Source: Speech to the Judges, given in Gardiner's "History of England", col. III, p.79
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Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!
Author: Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry
Source: Speech to the Judges, given in Gardiner's "History of England", col. III, p.79
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Hearts of oak are are ships,
Hearts of oak are our men.
Author: David Garrick
Source: Hearts of Oak, another version
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Hearts of oak are our ships,
Gallant tars are our men.
Author: David Garrick
Source: Hearts of Oak
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All in the Downs are fleet was moor'd.
Author: John Gay
Source: Sweet William's Farewell to Black-Eyed Susan
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Now landsmen all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool,
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule--
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be Rulers of the Queen's Navee.
Author: William S. Gilbert
Source: H.M.S. Pinafore
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Scarce one tall frigate walks the sea
Or skirts the safer shores
Of all that bore to victory
Our stout old Commodores.
Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Source: at a dinner given to Admiral Farragut
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The credite of the Realme, by defending the same with Wodden
Walles, as Themistocles called the Ship of Athens.
Author: Jan Hugh van Linschoten
Source: London (preface to English translation)
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Lysander when handing over the command of the fleet to
Callicratidas, the Spartan, said to him, "I deliver you a fleet
that is mistress of the seas."
Author: Lysander
Source: see Plutarch's "Life of Lysander"
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There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles
the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen
were not seamen.
Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay
Source: History of England (vol. I, ch. III, pt. XXXII)
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Now the sunset breezes shiver,
And she's fading down the river,
But in England's song forever
She's the Fighting Temeraire.
Author: Henry J. Newboldt
Source: The Fighting Temeraire
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Tell that to the Marines--the sailors won't believe it.
Author: Old Saying
Source: quoted by Scott in "Redgauntlet", ch. XIII
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