No wind serves him who has no port of destination.
[Nul vent fait pour celuy qui n’a point de port destiné. ]
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 2, ch. 1 (2.1), “Of the Inconsistency of Our Actions [De l’inconstance de nos actions]” (1572) [tr. Zeitlin (1934)]
(Source)
This passage was in the essays initial 1580 printing. Likely from a quotation of Seneca the Younger (1st C AD).
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:No winde makes for him, that hath no intended port to saile-unto.
[tr. Florio (1603)]No helpe serves him that runnes uncertain courses (or knows not where to end them).
[tr. Cotgrave (1611)]No wind serves him who is bound to no certain port.
[tr. Cotton (1686)]No wind serves him who addresses his voyage to no certain port.
[tr. Cotton/Hazlitt (1877)]No wind is fair for him who has no purposed port.
[tr. Ives (1925)]No wind works for the man who has no port of destination.
[tr. Frame (1943)]No wind is right for a seaman who has no predetermined harbour.
[tr. Screech (1987)]
Quotations about:
purposelessness
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Work, therefore, is desirable, first and foremost, as a preventive of boredom, for the boredom that a man feels when he is doing necessary though uninteresting work is as nothing in comparison with the boredom that he feels when he has nothing to do with his days.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 14 “Work” (1930)
(Source)
Boredom therefore can arise from the cessation of habitual functions, even though these may be boring too. It is also the shriek of unused capacities, the doom of serving no great end or design, or contributing to no master force.
Our plans miscarry because they have no aim. When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 71, sec. 3 “On the Supreme Good” [tr. Grummere (1918)]
(Source)
Alt trans.: "If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable."
See Montaigne (1572).
