What's the most famous quote in U.S. Naval history and what were the circumstanc

Question:

What's the most famous quote in U.S. Naval history and what were the circumstances?

I favor John Paul Jones "I've not yet begun to fight"

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: 'Damn the Torpedos, Full Speed Ahead,' Admiral David Fargut at the Battle of Mobile Bay in responce to an overly cautious officer announcing there were 'mines' in the water.

Ranks as a 'purely' Naval quote whereas the equally wonderful John Paul Jone's quote could refer to any battle situation, along with Commodore Dewey's crisp, "You may fire when you areready Gridley," both emminently quotable but lacking a definite nautical twist.

High on my list is one that contributed a book and a movie to the American canon.
""I wish to have no Connection with any Ship that does not Sail fast for I intend to go in harm's way."

Captain John Paul Jones, 16 November 1778, in a letter to le Ray de Chaumont.
[Morison, Samuel Eliot. John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography. (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1959): 182.]""

also more to the point----
"""Don't give up the ship!"

Tradition has it that Captain James Lawrence said these heroic words after being mortally wounded in the engagement between his ship, the U.S. frigate Chesapeake, and HMS Shannon on 1 June 1813. As the wounded Lawrence was carried below, he ordered "Tell the men to fire faster! Don't give up the ship!"

Although Chesapeake was forced to surrender, Captain Lawrence's words lived on as a rallying cry during the war. Oliver ""

as is
"""We have met the enemy and they are ours..."

Oliver Hazard Perry's immortal dispatch to Major General William Henry Harrison after the Battle of Lake Erie, 10 September 1813, "We have met the enemy and they are ours-- two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop." The victory secured the Great Lakes region for the United States and ended the threat of invasion from that quarter.
[William S. Dudley, ed., The Naval War of 1812: Documentary History. vol.2 (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1992): 553.]"""

And veryt much to the point--
"""Sighted Sub, Sank Same."

Message sent by an enlisted pilot, AMM 1/c Donald Francis Mason, on 28 January 1942. Mason believed that he had sunk a German U-boat off Argentia, Newfoundland.
[Blair, Clay. Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters 1939-1942. (New York: Random House, 1996): 482"""

Joy ----------------