Pirate Quotes, Sayings, Captions
Aye landlubber, cast ye gaze upon this list of the best pirate quotes, sayings, and captions. A better list you’ll never find in all your journeys, matey!
Best pirate quotes and sayings
Pirates are known the world over for their treasure, swashbuckling, and marauding at sea. They’re also well known for lending their more colorful phrases to the English language.
These quotes and sayings come from famous books, movies, TV, and even some real life pirates. Be sure to also check out the fun list of pirate captions below!
1. Fun pirate phrases and sayings (talk like a pirate!)
So you be wantin’ to know how to talk like a pirate, do ya? Well, ye be lucky to have found we Scallywags. Read these words and ye be rarin’ to go. Aye, there be fun a-plenty in these pirate sayings for both birthday and Halloween alike!
- May your blade always be wet, and powder dry.
- Under a black flag we sail and the sea shall be our empire.
- Ahoy matey! Let’s trouble the water!
- Under a black flag we shall sail.
- Obey the captain or learn to swim.
- I be ruler of the seven seas!
- Shiver me timbers!
- Avast, ye scurvy dog.
- Walk the plank, ye scallywag.
- Pillage and plunder.
- Batten down the hatches.
- Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen.
- Here be treasure, matey.
- Thar she blows!
- Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.
- Prepare to be boarded.
- May your anchor be tight, your cork be loose, your rum be spiced and your compass be true.
- Loot is first and wimmen second. Because if ye have the first ye’ll have the second, but if ye have the second ye won’t have the first for long!
- The rougher the seas, the smoother we sail. Ahoy!
- No cause is lost if there is but one fool left to fight for it.
- Avast ye landlubbers! Ye can throw ye lunch in Davy Jones’ locker, but not yer homework!
2. Funny pirate quotes
There comes a time in a man’s life when he hears the call of the sea. “Hey, YOU!” are the sea’s exact words. If the man has a brain in his head, he will hang up the phone immediately.
Dave Barry
There is no shortage of well-known pirates, including: Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, Blue beard, Yellowbeard, and Yellow beard with Black Roots, who surmised that, if blondes have more fun, then blond pirates must have a heck of a lot more fun.
Cuthbert Soup
It’s funny that pirates were always going around searching for treasure, and they never realized that the real treasure was the fond memories they were creating.
Jack Handey
I don’t really know much about pirates, or pirate culture. I’d be a contrarian pirate.
Todd Barry
Check out the Best Sea Shanties.
3. Short pirate quotes
Every generation welcomes the pirates from the last.
Lawrence Lessig
Life’s pretty good, and why wouldn’t it be? I’m a pirate, after all.
Johnny Depp
But I don’t want to be a pirate.
Jerry Seinfeld
To life, love and loot.
Captain Morgan
Why join the navy if you can be a pirate?
Steve Jobs
A merry life and a short one shall be my motto.
Bartholomew Roberts
It is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King.
W. S. Gilbert
Learn how to talk like a pirate with these pirate words and phrases.
4. Pirate sayings about treasure
Not all treasure’s silver and gold, mate.
Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean
When a pirate grows rich enough, they make him a prince.
George R R Martin
It is when pirates count their booty that they become mere thieves.
William Bolitho
Perhaps ye knows too much… ye’ve seen the cursed treasure, you know where it be hidd’n. Now proceed at your own risk. These be the last ‘friendly’ words ye’ll hear. Ye may not survive to pass this way again…
Pirates of the Caribbean Disney Attraction
5. Pirate quotes about life
Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be Pirates.
Mark Twain
The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a Pirate.
Bernard Williams
About the sea
Where there is a sea there are pirates.
Greek proverb
There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.
James Russell Lowell
Land was created to provide a place for boats to visit.
Brooks Atkinson
About freedom
In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure and the police take the place of pirates.
Michel Foucault
Damnation seize my soul if I give you quarters, or take any from you.
Blackbeard
Honor and the pirate code
Even pirates, before they attack another ship, hoist a black flag.
Bela Kiraly
In politics and in trade, bruisers and pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Merchant and pirate were for a long period one and the same person. Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality.
Friedrich Nietzsche
But the pirates never showed, and the slaves found themselves trapped on a narrow peninsula. (Lesson: never trust pirates.)
Erik Sass
Check out these famous pirate names.
6. Pirate quotes about love
Ah. Love. A dreadful bond.
Davy Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean
The pirate he will sink you with a kiss, he’ll steal your heart and sail away.
Joni Mitchell
Pirate princes are better in fairy tales than reality. In a story, their exploits are glossed over with pretty words and heroic motivations. But in reality, you can’t help but see the lives they wreck and the destruction they leave in their wake.
Roseanna M. White
If the pirate with a scarf had been more poetically minded he’d have thought that her eyes were like a thousand emeralds, glittering in a far-off pirate treasure chest. But he wasn’t, so he just thought that she had really really green eyes, a bit like seaweed.
Gideon Defoe
7. Famous pirate quotes
It’s better to swim in the sea below
Than to swing in the air and feed the crow,
Says jolly Ned Teach of Bristol.
Benjamin Franklin
Ships are but boards, sailors but men; there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves, I mean pirates, and then there is the peril of waters, winds, and rocks.
William Shakespeare
A pirate spreading misery and ruin over the face of the ocean.
Thomas Jefferson
There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates’ loot on Treasure Island.
Walt Disney
The same relation exists between merchant and pirate, who for a long period are one and the same person: where the one function appears to them inadvisable, they exercise the other.
Friedrich Nietzsche
8. Quotes from real pirates
Here is a selection of quotes and sayings from actual pirates in history.
I am a man of fortune and must seek my fortune.
Captain Henry Every
Waves crack with wicked fury against me ship’s hull while ocean currents rage as the full moon rises o’re the sea.
Captain John Phillips (circa 1723)
In an honest service, there is thin commons, low wages, and hard labor.
Black Bart
If you’d fought like a man, you would not have been hang’d like a dog.
Anne Bonny
Heaven, you fool? Did you ever year of any pirates going thither? Give me hell, it’s a merrier place.
Thomas Sutton
Damn ye, you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security.
“Black” Sam Bellamy
More real pirate quotes
Hark ye, you Cocklyn and la Bouche, I find by strengthening you, I have put a rod into your hands to whip myself, but I am still able to deal with you both; but since we met in love, let us part in love, for I find that three of a trade can never agree.
Howell Davis
Under the leadership of a man you have all chosen to flee. We shall see how you prove yourselves under the hand of a woman.
Madame Ching
My Lord, it is a very hard sentence. For my part, I am the most innocent person of them all, only I have been sworn against by perjured persons.
William Kidd
Historical pirate sayings
There is none of you but will hang me, I know, whenever you can clinch me within your power.
Bartholomew Roberts
If there’s a man among ye, ye’ll come up and fight like the man ye are to be!
Mary Read
As to hanging, it is no great hardship. For were it not for that, every cowardly fellow would turn pirate and so unfit the sea, that men of courage must starve.
Anne Bonny
In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages, and hard labor; in this, plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sour look or two at choking. No, a merry life and a short one, shall be my motto.
Bartholomew Roberts
9. Pirate quotes from books and literature
He’s more a man than any pair of rats of you in this here house, and what I say is this: let me see him that’ll lay a hand on him — that’s what I say, and you may lay to it.
Robert Louis Stevenson, “Treasure Island”
A captured pirate was brought before Alexander the Great. “How dare you molest the sea?” asked Alexander. “How dare you molest the whole world?” the pirate replied, and continued: “Because I do it with a little ship only, I am called a thief; you, doing it with a great navy, are called an emperor.
Noam Chomsky
10. Pirate sayings from TV
I may be a pirate, but I bristle at the thought of a woman losing her heart. Unless it’s over me.
Captain Killian Hook, Once Upon a Time
In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom in the dark once someone has illuminated it.
Captain Flint, Black Sails
Revenge may sate your being, but don’t misunderstand me, my dear. It’s an end, not a beginning.
Captain Killian Hook, Once Upon a Time
Nobody will believe it’s possible until we show them.
Captain Flint, Black Sails
Actually, I quite fancy you from time to time. When you’re not yelling at me.
Captain Killian Hook, Once Upon a Time
11. Pirate quotes from movies
You’ll not forget what I done good, not any more than you’ll forget the bad.
Long John Silver, Treasure Island
Fate has brought us together again. Well, actually, buried treasure and pirates brought us together.
Kermit the Frog as Captain Abraham Smollet, Muppet Treasure Island
Betrayin’s all part of piratin’. If you don’t know that you’re not even close to being a pirate.
Yellowbeard movie
It’s a pleasant thing to be young, and have ten toes, and you may lay to that.
Long John Silver, Treasure Island
The sea, Frederic, is a jealous mistress. But she is her own reward. Believe me, you’ve missed nothing.
The Pirate King, The Pirate Movie
You poor thing. Pirates. You mean like walking the plank? Buried treasure? Hack, slash, off with his head, and the Jolly Richard, and everything?
Mabel, The Pirate Movie
Look, I don’t mean to be rude but this is not as easy as it looks so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t distract me.
Dread Pirate Roberts, The Princess Bride
You’re either born a pirate or not!
Yellowbeard movie
You’ll not forget what I done good, not any more than you’ll forget the bad.
Long John Silver, Treasure Island
From Disney movies
The truth is far too much fun.
Captain Hook, Hook
You got the makings of greatness in you, but you got to take the helm and chart your own course! Stick to it, no matter the squalls.
Long John Silver, Treasure Planet
I’ve just had a sublime vision. All the jagged parts of my life have come together to form a complete and mystical… whole.
Captain Hook, Hook
Pirates of the Caribbean
If you choose to lock your heart away, you’ll lose it for certain.
Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean
The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem.
Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean
Vile and dissolute creatures, the lot of them. I intend to see that any man who sails under a pirate flag or wears a pirate brand gets what he deserves: a short drop and a sudden stop.
Norrington, Pirates of the Caribbean
Take what you can, give nothing back.
Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean
I’ve had it with wobbly-legged, rum-soaked pirates!
Elizabeth Swann, Pirates of the Caribbean
One soul is not equal to another.
Davy Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean
Norrington: You are without doubt the worst pirate I’ve ever heard of.
Jack Sparrow: But you have heard of me.
Pirates of the Caribbean
It is my intention to commandeer one of these ships, pick up a crew in Tortuga, raid, pillage, plunder and otherwise pilfer my weasely black guts out.
Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean
Peter Pan
I have given me word not to lay a finger, or a hook, on Peter Pan. And Captain Hook never breaks a promise.
Captain Hook, Peter Pan
Ha-ha-ha! You wouldn’t dare fight old Hook man-to-man. You’d fly away like a cowardly sparrow!
Captain Hook, Peter Pan
12. Pirate quotes from song lyrics
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a king.
Frank Sinatra
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, and loot
Drink up, me hearties, yo ho
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot
Disney, “Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me)”
What’s a pirate minus the ship? Just a creative homeless guy.
Bo Burnham, “New Math”
Ohh, a pirate’s life is a wonderful life
A-rovin’ over the sea
Give me a career
As a buccaneer
It’s the life of a pirate for me
Disney, “A Pirate’s Life”
13. Pirate captions for Instagram
Add a fun caption to your pirate-themed Instagram post!
- Sailors tell stories.
- The captain is always right.
- Sometimes it just takes a pirate to get the job done.
- A pirate’s life for me.
- Sailors tell stories, pirates make legends.
- Pirate booty.
- Party like a pirate.
- A smooth sea never made a skilled pirate.
- Talk pirate to me, baby.
- Keep calm and… raise the Jolly Roger!
- Work like a captain, play like a pirate.
- Pirate for hire.
- Once a pirate, always a pirate.
- You’re my first mate.
Funny pirate captions
- To err is human but to arr is pirate.
- A Pirate’s favorite movie is one that is rated “ARRRR”!
- Keep calm… and say Arrr!
- Why be a princess when you can be a pirate?
- You had me at ahoy.
Pirate pun captions
- Time flies when you’re having rum!
- I just want to be a pirate… but I couldn’t get my ship together.
- Always be who you arrrr…
- I don’t give a ship!
- Just another pirate looking for some booty.
- You arrrrrr my most sought after treasure.
- When I grow up, aye wanna be a pirate.
- Captain of the ship show.
Pirate rum captions
- Instant pirate. Just add rum.
- If rum can’t fix it, you are not using enough rum.
- Money can’t buy you happiness… but it can buy you rum!
- All for rum and rum for all.
We hope you enjoyed these fun pirate quotes, sayings, and captions. Here are more entertaining lists to read:
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By Greg Johnson | Published 3/14/2022
