OCEAN QUOTES III
quotations about the ocean
We follow and race
In shifting chase,
Over the boundless ocean-space!
Who hath beheld when the race begun?
Who shall behold it run?
BAYARD TAYLOR
The Waves
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more.
BARRY CORNWALL
The Sea
I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea -- whether it is to sail or to watch it -- we are going back from whence we came.
JOHN F. KENNEDY
remarks at a dinner for the America's Cup crews, September 14, 1962
Ocean into tempest wrought,
To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
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
Water seeks its own level. Look at them. The Tigris, the Euphrates, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Yangtze. The world's great rivers. And every one of them finds its way to the ocean.
ALISON MCGHEE
All Rivers Flow to the Sea
What are the wild waves saying,
Sister, the whole day long,
That ever amid our playing
I hear but their low, lone song?
JOSEPH E. CARPENTER
What Are the Wild Waves Saying?
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
Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider.
LORD BYRON
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches toss'd.
FELICIA HEMANS
The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers in New England
The great depths of the ocean are entirely unknown to us; soundings cannot reach them. What fanes in those remote depths, what beings live twelve or fifteen miles beneath the surface of the waters, what is the organization of the animals we can scarcely conjecture?
JULES VERNE
Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
The land is dearer for the sea,
The ocean for the shore.
LUCY LARCOM
On the Beach
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
Tut! the best thing I know between France and England is the sea.
DOUGLAS JERROLD
Jerrold's Wit
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
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
There is an energy to the ocean in particular, an element of danger that requires a giving over of self, that makes swimming in heavy water a kind of holy communion. I see swimming as a way to get to know a place with an intimacy that I otherwise wouldn't have. To swim in the ocean is to immerse myself in wildness, to feel the way the water rises and falls like breath.
BONNIE TSUI
"In Hawaii, a Swimmer's Communion With the Wild Ocean", New York Times, February 2, 2017
There was a magic about the sea. People were drawn to it. People wanted to love by it, swim in it, play in it, look at it. It was a living thing that was as unpredictable as a great stage actor: it could be calm and welcoming, opening its arms to embrace it's audience one moment, but then could explode with its stormy tempers, flinging people around, wanting them out, attacking coastlines, breaking down islands. It had a playful side too, as it enjoyed the crowd, tossed the children about, knocked lilos over, tipped over windsurfers, occasionally gave sailors helping hands; all done with a secret little chuckle.
CECELIA AHERN
The Gift
Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.
THOMAS GRAY
Elegy in a Country Churchyard
Miles of ocean, and oh, the vastness of it, shadows and salt, fierce dark water filled with alien emptiness and the monsters that lived there. Imagine falling into that water and knowing it was below you, even as you treaded water, desperately trying to remain on the surface; the terror of the realization of what was under you--miles and miles of nothingness and monsters, blackness stretching away everywhere and the sea floor so far below--would tear your mind apart.
CASSANDRA CLARE
Lady Midnight