Edward Forbes Quotes

We cannot menace the peace of a single continental hamlet no matter how great our supreme navy may become but the … whole fortunes of our race and empire … would perish and be utterly swept away if our naval supremacy were to be impaired. It is the British navy which makes Great Britain a great power.

Without sea-power Germany's position in the world resembled a mollusk without a shell

The maintenance of naval supremacy is our foundation not only of the empire but of our freedom and our lives.

England is not interested in anything but naval dominance and their possessions in America.

Let us build a navy as big as hers and do as we please.

Great Britain would spend her last guinea to keep a navy superior to that of the United States or any other power.

Set in this stormy Northern sea, Queen of these restless fields of tide, England! what shall men say of thee, Before whose feet the worlds divide?

Whoever commands the sea, commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself.

Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never will be slaves.

With Freedom's lion-banner Britannia rules the waves.

It was, and is, an illusion, however, to think that the English would have treated us any better, and have allowed our economic growth to have proceeded unchecked if we had had no fleet.

From knowledge, sea power. Ex Scientia Tridens

When Britain first, at Heaven's command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sung this strain: 'Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.'

The United States has the largest and best navy in the world.

The best way to contain China and make it the peaceful rise of China is for us to have an enormously robust navy that is the greatest navy in the world, that can patrol two oceans, that can fight two or three wars, and China will not challenge us because the Chinese are practical.

He who commands the sea has command of everything.

Germany's greatness makes it impossible for her to do without the ocean, but the ocean also proves that even in the distance, and on its farther side, without Germany and the German Emperor, no great decision dare henceforth be taken.

We have conquered for ourselves a place in the sun. It will now be my task to see to it that this place in the sun remains our undisputed possession, for our future lies upon the water.

The English, a spirited nation, claim the empire of the sea; the French, a calmer nation, claim that of the air.

England, so long mistress of the sea, Where winds and waves confess her sovereignty, Her ancient triumphs yet on high shall bear And reign the sovereign of the conquered air.

It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious.

Our present control of the sea is so absolute that it is sometimes taken for granted.

What astounds me about the history of the British Navy is how cheaply we have policed the world for 300 years.

It was in the days when France's power was already broken upon the seas, and when more of her three-deckers lay rotting in the Medway than were to be found in Brest harbour. But her frigates and corvettes still scoured the ocean, closely followed ever by those of her rival. At the uttermost ends of the earth these dainty vessels, with sweet names of girls or of flowers, mangled and shattered each other for the honour of the four yards of bunting which flapped from the end of their gaffs.

Our neighbors the Hollanders may be our example in this case; who whilst we have been driving a private trade from port to port, of which we are likely now to be deprived, have conquered so much land in the East and West Indies that it may be said of them, as of the Spaniards, That the sun never sets upon their dominions.