OCEAN QUOTES III

quotations about the ocean

Ocean quote

He laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane,"
And played familiar with his hoary locks.

ROBERT POLLOK

The Course of Time


And oh! if the wave could speak in any other language than that of its own harsh thunder, how many tales of agony and suffering might it unfold!

PETER WHITTLE

Marina; or, An historical and descriptive account of Southport, Lytham, and Blackpool


But to the lover of nature--and who has the courage to avow himself aught else?--the sea-shore can never be monotonous. The swirl and sweep of ever-shifting waters, the flying mist of foam breaking away into a gray and ghostly distance down the beach, the eternal drone of ocean, mingling itself with one's talk by day and with the light dance-music in the parlors by night--all these are active sources of a passive pleasure. And to lie at length upon the tawny sand, watching, through half-closed eyes, the heaving waves, that mount against a dark blue sky wherein great silvery masses of cloud float idly on, whiter than the sunlit sails that fade and grow and fade along the horizon, while some fair damsel sits close by, reading ancient ballads of a simple metre, or older legends of love and romance--tell me, my eater of the fashionable lotus, is not this a diversion well worth your having?

GEORGE ARNOLD

"Why Thomas Was Discharged", Stories by American Authors

Tags: George Arnold


To their inhabitants the sea is every thing. Their hopes and fears, their gains and losses, their joys and sorrows, are linked with it; and the largeness of the ocean has moulded their feelings and their characters. They are in a measure partakers of its immensity and its mystery. The commonest of their men have wrestled with the powers of the air, and the might of wind, and wave, and icy cold. The weakest of their women have felt the hallowing touch of sudden calamity, and of long, lonely, life-and-death, watches.

AMELIA E. BARR

A Daughter of Fife

Tags: Amelia E. Barr


Nor is there in the whole range of nature a grander or more magnificent scene than the ocean in a storm, when deep calls unto deep, and its liquid mountains roll and break against each other, when it dashes to pieces, in the wantonness of its power, the strongest, structures which man can rear for the purpose of floating over its billows; then it is that the proudest and bravest tremble and quail at the roaring and thunder of its waters.

PETER WHITTLE

Marina; or, An historical and descriptive account of Southport, Lytham, and Blackpool


I will mount a long wind some day and break the heavy waves,
And set my cloudy sail straight and bridge the deep, deep sea.

LI BAI

"The Hard Road"

Tags: Li Bai


The ocean and the wind and the stars and the moon will all teach you many things.

JANE ROBERTS

Emir's Education In The Proper Use of Magical Powers


Hail, thou multitudinous ocean! Thy fluctuating waters wash the varied shores of the world, and while they disjoin nations whom a nearer connection would involve in eternal war, they circulate their arts and their labors, and give health and plenty to mankind.

CHRISTOPH STURM

attributed, Day's Collacon


The ocean is home to all of us, and some part of us knows that.

SHEILA HURST

"Author's Book Inspired By Woods Hole And The Ocean", Cape News, January 18, 2017


The ocean is the throbbing heart of the universe, and its every wave a mound over those who have no graves.

MISS C. TALBOTT

attributed, Day's Collacon


Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
Stops with the shore.

LORD BYRON

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Tags: Lord Byron


And I shall watch the ferry-boats
And they'll get high
On a bluer ocean
Against tomorrow's sky
And I will never grow so old again
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain

VAN MORRISON

"Sweet Thing"


Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought of which the sea would not be part.

HERMANN BROCH

foreword, The Spell


In front of the ocean, man faces infinity, life, death.

ALAIN CARAYOL

"The sea is not another country", The Eye of Photography, January 28, 2017


Ye waves
That o'er th' interminable ocean wreathe
Your crisped smiles.

AESCHYLUS

Prometheus Chained

Tags: Aeschylus


Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Thanatopsis

Tags: William Cullen Bryant


What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.

WERNER HERZOG

attributed, Beowulf on Film: Adaptations and Variations

Tags: Werner Herzog


We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic
Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic

VAN MORRISON

Into the Mystic


Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.

THOMAS GRAY

Elegy in a Country Churchyard

Tags: Thomas Gray


The land is dearer for the sea,
The ocean for the shore.

LUCY LARCOM

On the Beach