OCEAN QUOTES
quotations about the ocean
The ocean is the navigator's world.
WILLIAM BAFFIN
attributed, Toasts and Tributes
There's nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realize that you've been missing the whole point of the ocean. Staying on the surface all the time is like going to the circus and staring at the outside of the tent.
DAVE BARRY
attributed, Morning Mercies, June 30, 2015
Surely oak and threefold brass surrounded his heart, who first trusted a frail vessel to the merciless ocean.
HORACE
attributed, Day's Collacon
She loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.
HOLLY BLACK
Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale
It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself.
RACHEL CARSON
The Sea Around Us
What she really loved was to hang over the edge and watch the bow of the ship slice through the waves. She loved it especially when the waves were high and the ship rose and fell, or when it was snowing and the flakes stung her face.
KRISTIN CASHORE
Graceling
Rich and various gems inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep.
JOHN MILTON
Comus
Coastal people never really know what the ocean symbolizes to landlocked inland people--what a great distant dream it is, present but unseen in the deepest level of subconsciousness, and when they arrive at the ocean and the conscious images are compared with the subconscious dream there is a sense of defeat at having come so far to be stopped by a mystery that can never be fathomed. The source of it all.
ROBERT M. PIRSIG
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I was happy anywhere I could see the ocean.
AI YAZAWA
Nana, Vol. 18
The treasures which it holds are well worthy the mysteriousness and seclusions and security of the casket. There, amidst its inmost recesses, amidst its caverns and hidden depths, are contained secrets which can never be divulged; there the mighty monsters of the deep, many of them unknown to us, play and sport; there the beautiful beds of pearl and coral hide their brightest treasures; there the tough and hardy seaweed clings to its isolated and solitary rock, fathoms and fathoms below the surface of the water: there, doubtless, lies many a beautiful spot, which, if it could be elevated from beneath the superincumbent weight of waters, would be found some beautiful island, glittering with all the treasures of the ocean.
PETER WHITTLE
Marina; or, An historical and descriptive account of Southport, Lytham, and Blackpool
I collect my belongings I no longer need
and make my way to the ocean to burn and drown and start anew
and it is quite wonderful, setting fire to my chains
CHARLOTTE ERIKSSON
attributed, goodreads
Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
The solemn, wonderful, majestic ocean! It exalts, but only to crush me under a sense of its grandeur--boundless, everlasting, pitiless of my insignificance. Wherein does it differ from me? In immensity of breadth and depth. What does it give me? A sense of infinity, and of the abyss which divides me from it.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Thoughts", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
If we look at the ocean in a calm, there is something imposing in its aspect; stretched out in its sleeping tranquility, but looking fearfully deep, and its silence seems like that of the lion when crouching for its prey.
JENNY M. PARKER
attributed, Day's Collacon
As with anything worthy of investment, we must also continue our efforts to understand the ocean better. To date, less than ten percent of it has been thoroughly mapped, and only one percent has been actively explored.
GARY E. KNELL
"Securing a Bold, Blue, and Prosperous Future for Our Ocean", National Geographic, January 27, 2017
But we cannot be always seeing the ocean. Its face is always large; its smile is bright; the ever-sounding shore sounds on. Yet we have no property in them. We stop and gaze; we pause and draw our breath; we look and wonder at the grandeur of the other world; but we live on shore.
WALTER BAGEHOT
Literary Studies
My soul is full of longing
for the secret of the sea,
and the heart of the great ocean
sends a thrilling pulse through me.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
"The Secret of the Sea"
Ain't the ocean that wet place down around New Jersey somewhere?
JOHN KENDRICK BANGS
Mollie and the Unwiseman Abroad
The use of sea and air is common to all; neither can a title to the ocean belong to any people or private persons, forasmuch as neither nature nor public use and custom permit any possession therof.
ELIZABETH I
Letters
Never trust the calm sea when she shows her false alluring smile.
LUCRETIUS
De Rerum Natura