Years ago I owned a power boat which I kept on Lake Champlain. (I gave it up when it became a mechanical nightmare, and I was spending more time fixing stuff than boating—I should have known better!) I named the boat “The Cromwell.” (After Oliver.) The reason was a quote of OC’s that I had come across: “No one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going.” It’s more or less my philosophy of life, as well as water travel.
In The Practical Cogitator I came across the context, as here presented by medical pioneer William Osler (addressing his students): “As to the method of your work, I have a single bit of advice, which I give with the earnest conviction of its paramount influence in any success which may have attended my efforts in life—Take no thought for the morrow. Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day’s work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition. … The student who is worrying about his future, anxious over the examinations, doubting his fitness for the profession, is certain not to do so well as the man who cares for nothing but the matter in hand, and who knows not whither he is going.”
If I (foolishly) bought another boat I’d name it “The Cromwell II.”