I stumbled into the quote above for the first time and it resonated with me. The original quote seems to be credited to a William G.T. Shedd in the 1800s, but a couple poets seem to have taken his saying and turned it into the anchor points of their poems.
Ships Are Safe in the Harbour
All I live for is now
All I stand for is where and how
All I wish for are magic moments
As I sail through change
My resolve remains the same
What I chose are magic moments
Because ships are safe in the harbour
But that is not what ships are made for
The mind could stretch much further
But it seems that is not what our minds are trained for
We call for random order
You can’t control Mother nature’s daughter
Ships are safe in the harbour
But that is not what ships are built for
The witch hunter roams
The scary thing is that he’s not alone
He’s trying to down my magic moments
As we sail through change
Ride the wind of a silent rage
And sing laments of magic moments
– Anon
Another iteration from the 2000s
A ship is safe in the harbor,
But that’s not what ships are built for.
Because in the sum of our human gleams,
We have created the vessel for our dreams.
Its purpose: to retrieve the alien shore,
To scout, seek, achieve and explore.
A ship is meant to fly and fly,
To seize the horizon and capture the sky.
And the few of us with the intrepidity,
To brave the virulent vortex velocity
We are the wealthiest of men ever to dream
And ever to combat a sea or a stream.
And the harbored ships that fritter away,
Slowly begin to rot and decay.
Never has there been a greater waste of a day,
Than that spent harbored,
Than those of us who stay.
– Gael Attal