Today’s Quote-to-Quote: A Quoteload of Quotes on Boats, Rising Tides and Other Shipshape Asides

“A rising tide lifts all boats.”
— A favorite quote of Ronald Reagan’s in the 1980 presidential campaign, used to justify cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

 “It’s been said, referring to the economy, that a rising tide lifts all boats. No, it doesn’t. In practice, the big cruise ships and luxury yachts are lifted, but the little skiffs are swamped and quickly sink.”
— Richard Sherricky

 “An immutable law of the sea is that you always help another ship in trouble, whether you like their captain and crew or not.”
— Hieronymus Sylvan

 “It’s the man who waits for his ship to come in who’s always missing the boat.”
— Anonymous

 “While you’re waiting for your ship to come in, it can’t hurt to take some swimming lessons.”
— Gilda Horowitz

 “Most people would rather wait for their ship to come in than begin building a raft. The problem: the ship they’re awaiting is usually the Titanic.”
— Carleton Quinn

 “The Tea Partiers should realize that the American revolutionaries who threw the tea off British ships in the 18th century were not conservative, Republican, nor senior citizens on Hoverounds.”
— Siobhan Senjac

 “A number of people are sitting in a small boat. All of a sudden, one man begins to drill a hole under his seat. When the people complain, he retorts, ‘What complaint do you have? After all, I’m drilling the hole under my own seat.’ Finally a wise man answers him, ‘We are all in the same boat. The hole may be under your seat, but the water that comes in will make the boat sink with all of us.’ ”
— Rabbi Ariyeh Kaplan, from the teachings of the Midrash Rabbah, Vayikra 4:6.

 “We didn’t all come over in the same ship, but we’re all in the same boat.”
— Bernard Baruch