Quotes by John Paul Jones

“If fear is cultivated it will become stronger, if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.”

“It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win.”

“I have sacrificed not only my favorite scheme of life, but the softer affections of the heart, and my prospects of domestic happiness, and I am ready to sacrifice my life also, with cheerfulness, i...”

“A captain of the Navy ought to be a man of strong and well connected sense, with a tolerable good education, a gentleman, as well as a seaman both in theory and practice.”

“Since human wisdom cannot secure us from accidents, it is the greatest effort of reason to bear them well.”

“If fear is cultivated it will become stronger if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.”

“If fear is cultivated it will become stronger. If faith is cultivated it will achieve the mastery ... faith is the stronger emotion because it is positive whereas fear is negative.”

“I have not yet begun to fight!”

“If fear is cultivated it will become stronger if faith is cultivated it will achieve mastery.”

“A navy is essentially and necessarily aristocratic. True as may be the political principles for which we are now contending they can never be practically applied or even admitted on board ship, out...”

“I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go in harm's way.”

“...the Bon Homme Richard, having head way, ran her bows into the stern of the Serapis. We had remained in this situation but a few minutes when we were again hailed by the Serapis, Has your ship st...”

“I may sink, but I'll be damned if I strike!”

“This was what some of his sailors, reported in British newspapers at the time, claimed he had said; Jones's official report merely stated that he had answered in the most determined negative.”

“Where men of fine feeling are concerned there is seldom misunderstanding.”

“That flag and I are twins, born in the same hour from the same womb of destiny. We cannot be parted in life or in death.”

“It is by no means enough that an officer of the Navy should be a capable mariner. He must be that, of course, but also a great deal more. He should be as well a gentleman of liberal education, refi...”

“The future naval officers, who live within these walls, will find in the career of the man whose life we this day celebrate, not merely a subject for admiration and respect, but an object lesson to...”

“The boy born at Arbigland in Scotland on 6 July 1747 and christened John, who later added Jones to his surname Paul, and who was generally known as Paul Jones during the height of his naval career,...”

“Yet, first and always, Paul Jones was a fighting sailor. In the history of the United States Navy, whose rise to be the greatest navy in the world he desired and foretold, Paul Jones now occupies a...”