If you use bash on both sides, you can use printf for any words in the command that need quoting (or all words if you are writing a script): ssh foo@bar ba

If you use bash on both sides, you can use printf for any words in the command that need quoting (or all words if you are writing a script): ssh foo@bar baz "$(printf '%q\n' "something that needs $quoting") For cases where one or both sides are not bash, but still POSIX like, it's relatively easy to write a function that uses single quotes; just replace every single quote with '\'' before wrapping in single quotes.