We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.

The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.

I couldn’t change the wind but perhaps I could reduce the effect of the wind on the boat.

A ship, like a human being, moves best when it is slightly athwart the wind, when it has to keep its sails tight and attend its course. Ships, like men, do poorly when the wind is directly behind, pushing them sloppily on their way so that no care is required in steering or in the management of sails; the wind seems favorable, for it blows in the direction one is heading, but actually it is destructive because it induces a relaxation in tension and skill. What is needed is a wind slightly opposed to the ship, for then tension can be maintained, and juices can flow and ideas can germinate, for ships, like men, respond to challenge.

To reach a port we must sail, sometimes with the wind, and sometimes against it. But we must not drift or lie at anchor.

Turn over the rudder in God's name, and sail with the wind heaven sends us.

Greatness is not in where we stand but in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it — but sail we must and not drift, nor lie at anchor.

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving — we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it — but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.

One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.
Like the winds of the seas are the ways of fate,
As we voyage along through the life:
Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favorable to him.

The ship is always off course. Anybody who sails knows that. Sailing is being off course and correcting. That gives a sense of what life is about.

being attached in this way to any number of things, we’re weighed down by them and dragged down. [16] That is why, if the weather prevents us from sailing, we sit there in a state of anxiety, constantly peering around. ‘What wind is this?’ The North Wind. And what does it matter to us and to him? ‘When will the West Wind blow?’ When it so chooses, my good friend, or rather, when Aeolus chooses; for God hasn’t appointed you to be controller of the winds, he has appointed Aeolus. [17] What are we to do, then? To make the best of what lies within our power, and deal with everything else as it comes.

Fix your course to a star and you can navigate through any storm

To reach a port we must set sail –
Sail, not tie at anchor
Sail, not drift.