World Maritime Day is marked annually in the last week of September to highlight the international maritime industry’s contributions to the world economy. It is also observed to raise awareness about shipping safety and the marine environment.

This year, the day falls on Sept. 30, and the theme reflects a clear need to raise awareness about the seafarersʹ crucial role in world trade, according to the United Nations.

"I renew my appeal to Governments to address their plight by formally designating seafarers and other marine personnel as “key workers”, ensuring safe crew changes, implementing established protocols, and allowing stranded seafarers to be repatriated and others to join ships," U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres wrote on the website.

Here are some inspirational quotes, courtesy Brainy Quotes, to share on this day:

1. "Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country's cause. Honor, also, to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field and serves, as he best can, the same cause." ― Abraham Lincoln

2. "The goal is not to sail the boat, but rather to help the boat sail herself. " ― John Rousmaniere

3. "The art of the sailor is to leave nothing to chance." ― Annie Van De Wiele

4. "We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch - we are going back from whence we came." ― John F. Kennedy

5. "Sailors, with their built-in sense of order, service, and discipline, should really be running the world" ― Nicholas Monsarrat

6. "I propose to construct a new chart for navigating, on which I shall delineate all the sea and lands of the Ocean in their proper positions under their bearings; and further, I propose to prepare a book, and to put down all as it were in a picture, by latitude from the equator, and western longitude." ― Christopher Columbus

7. "The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence." - Rabindranath Tagore

8. "Sailors ought never to go to church. They ought to go to hell, where it is much more comfortable." ― H.G. Wells

9. "Dwellers by the sea are generally superstitious; sailors always are. There is something in the illimitable expanse of sky and water that dilates the imagination." ― Thomas Bailey Aldrich

10. "Like solo sailors venturing into the Southern Ocean, climbers are seduced by risk. The desire to push to a summit or scale a rock face is so strong that they consciously or subconsciously minimize safety precautions drilled into their brains." ― Charles Duhigg

US Coast Guard
U.S. Coast Guard. Pixabay
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