Quotes / RMS Titanic

Frederick Fleet: Is there anyone there?!

James Moody: Yes, what do you see?

Frederick Fleet: ICEBERG, RIGHT AHEAD!!!

— The iceberg is sighted, 11:39pm, 14 April 1912

"There came what seemed to me nothing more than an extra heave of the engines and a more than usually obvious dancing motion of the mattress on which I sat. Nothing more than that—no sound of a crash or of anything else: no sense of shock, no jar that felt like one heavy body meeting another."

— Lawrence Beesley of Second Class describing the iceberg collision.

SOS SOS CQD CQD TITANIC
CQD THIS IS TITANIC
CQD THIS IS

— Last Morse code messages sent by Titanic senior wireless operator Jack Phillips, 2:10 am, 15 April 1912

"I will not assert that she is unsinkable, but I can say confidently that, whatever the accident, this vessel would not go down before time had been given to save the life of every person on board. I will go a bit further. I will say that I cannot imagine any condition that would cause the Adriatic to founder. I cannot conceive of any fatal disaster happening to this ship. Modern shipbuilding has reduced that danger to a minimum."

— Captain Edward J. Smith, commanding officer of the Titanic, from an interview in May 1907, while he was in command of the Adriatic.

Deeply regret advise you Titanic sank this morning after collision with iceberg, resulting in serious loss of life. Full particulars later.

— J Bruce Ismay, Chairman of the White Star Line, confirming the sinking via telegraph

"At the time, she was the biggest, she was the best. She could beat nature. She could go through an ice flow, she could hit an iceberg. She was unsinkable. She was fast, she was big. But she was a pimple on the ocean. Nature could yawn and knock on her side, and did."

— Dr. Roy Cullimore, marine biologist

"Titanic represented not so much the end of an era. Titanic represented the pause and reflection that, 'Well, maybe we're not so great as we thought we were.' But I'll tell you what: it's not gonna happen again."

— Jack Eaton, Titanic historian

"We know perhaps a little better what the mystery of Titanic is all about. It's a question of steel, a question of naval architecture exceeding the limits of what the ship was designed for. That's why she sank: exceeding the limits of what she was designed for."

— William Garzke, naval architect

"I can only conclude that another hand than mine was on the helm."

— Captain Arthur Rostron on the RMS Carpathia's heroic dash to rescue the survivors

The Captain stood where a Captain should
For the Law of the Sea is grim;
The Owner romped while the ship was swamped
And no law bothered him.
The Captain stood where the Captain should
When a Captain's ship goes down
But the Owner led when the women fled,
For an Owner must not drown.
The Captain sank as a man of Rank,
While his Owner turned away;
The Captain's grave was his bridge and brave,
He earned his seaman's pay.
To hold your place in the ghastly face
Of Death on the Sea at Night
Is a Seaman's job, but to flee with the mob
Is an Owner's Noble Right.

— Ben Hecht, Man and Master (on the subject of Captain Smith's and Bruce Ismay's contrasting actions on the night of the sinking)

Heavenly Host: Information: the Titanic is en route from the planet Sto in the Cassavalian Belt. The purpose of the cruise is to experience primitive cultures.
The Doctor: Titanic. Um... who... thought of the name?
Heavenly Host: Information: it was chosen as the most famous vessel of the planet Earth.
The Doctor: ... Did they tell you why it was famous?

— Doctor Who, "Voyage of the Damned"

"Y'see, nothing in this life is a guarantee, which means everything you do is a gamble. That's Step 2. People put such negative connotations on gambling, because deep down... people are scared of change. Even if it means changing into something better. You have to gamble. It's a necessity. I gamble with lots of things: the mob, symbols like Harvey Dent, this place. Three of you gambled with your lives when you beat me up week after week. How'd you think that was gonna turn out? That was a bad bet. Of course, there's been worse gambles that didn't pay off. A long time ago, there was this man that built this huge boat, and he was so confident in his boat that he said not even God could sink it. Well, one thing leads to another, "another" being an iceberg, and [punches the palm of his other hand] that boat starts to sink. And he was so arrogant that he didn't put enough lifeboats on board, and... 1500 people lost their lives. He gambled with 1500 lives and lost. Still, 700 people made it out okay. That's not too bad. I guess the moral of the story is... that you can just never have enough ice for a good party."

— The Joker, The Joker Blogs

"And by the way, it's not lost on me, as somebody who's studied the meaning of Titanic, its greater meaning to us, you know, historically and societally, that it's about warnings that were ignored. That ship's lying at the bottom of the ocean not because of the nature of its steel or the nature of its compartments, but just because of bad seamanship. The captain was warned there were icebergs ahead, it was a moonless night, and he plowed ahead for whatever reason. I think there was some greed, there was some glory in it; he had a boot up his rear from J. Bruce Ismay to get it to New York on time or early so they'd have a headline, which I show in the film, you know? And here we are again, and at the same place, you know? Now there's one wreck lying next to the other wreck for the same damn reason!"

— James Cameron, comparing the hubris that led to the OceanGate tragedy to that which led to the Titanic sinking