116 Inspiring Ocean Quotes

Sept. 23, 2024, 12:45 a.m.

116 Inspiring Ocean Quotes

There’s something undeniably captivating about the ocean. Its vastness, its mystery, and its rhythmic ebb and flow have inspired poets, writers, and adventurers for centuries. Whether you find solace in the gentle whispers of waves or marvel at the ocean's tempestuous power, there's a quote that speaks to every sea lover's soul. In our carefully curated collection of the top 116 inspiring ocean quotes, you’ll find words that beautifully capture the essence of the sea and its profound impact on our lives. Dive in and let these quotes wash over you, sparking inspiration, reflection, and a deeper connection to the magnificent blue expanse.

1. “at the press conference for the film he impressed everyone with his complete sincerity and innocence. he said he had come to see the sea for the first time and marveled at how clean it was. someone told him that, in fact, it wasn't. 'when the world is emptied of human beings' he said, 'it will become so again” - Werner Herzog

2. “The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land, to add something to the extent and the solidity of our possessions. And even a cursory glance at the history of the biological sciences during the last quarter of a century is sufficient to justify the assertion, that the most potent instrument for the extension of the realm of natural knowledge which has come into men's hands, since the publication of Newton's ‘Principia’, is Darwin's ‘Origin of Species.” - Thomas Henry Huxley

3. “Hark, now hear the sailors cry, Smell the sea, and feel the sky,Let your soul & spirit fly, into the mystic.- Into the Mystic” - Van Morrison

4. “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.- Sweet Thing” - Van Morrison

5. “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.[Remarks at the Dinner for the America's Cup Crews, September 14 1962]” - John F. Kennedy

6. “We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.” - Mother Teresa

7. “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

8. “I can wade Grief—Whole Pools of it—I'm used to that—But the least push of JoyBreaks up my feet—And I tip—drunken—Let no Pebble—smile—'Twas the New Liquor—That was all!” - Emily Dickinson

9. “Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills.” - Ambrose Bierce

10. “She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.” - Janet Fitch

11. “The sea is emotion incarnate. It loves, hates, and weeps. It defies all attempts to capture it with words and rejects all shackles. No matter what you say about it, there is always that which you can't.” - Christopher Paolini

12. “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

13. “They keep saying that sea levels are rising an' all this. It's nowt to do with the icebergs melting, it's because there's too many fish in it. Get rid of some of the fish and the water will drop. Simple. Basic science.” - Karl Pilkington

14. “I am a sailor, you're my first mate We signed on together, we coupled our fate Hauled up our anchor, determined not to fail For the heart's treasure, together we set sail With no maps to guide us, we steered our own course Rode out the storms when the winds were gale force Sat out the doldrums in patience and hope Working together, we learned how to cope. Life is an ocean and love it a boat In troubled waters it keeps us afloat When we started the voyage there was just me and you Now gathered round us we have our own crew Together we're in this relationship We built it with care to last the whole trip Our true destination's not marked on any chart We're navigating the shores of the heart” - John McDermott

15. “The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface.The desert is a place of bones, where the innards are turned out, to desiccate into dust.The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being.Inside out and outside in. These are worlds of things that implode or explode, and the only catalyst that determines the direction of eco-movement is the balance of water.Both worlds are deceptive, dangerous. Both, seething with hidden life.The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage.Dare to breach the surface and sink.” - Vera Nazarian

16. “Doesn't it seem to you," asked Madame Bovary, "that the mind moves more freely in the presence of that boundless expanse, that the sight of it elevates the soul and gives rise to thoughts of the infinite and the ideal?” - Gustave Flaubert

17. “The deep roar of the ocean.The break of waves on farther shores that thought can find.The silent thunders of the deep.And from among it, voices calling, and yet not voices, humming trillings, wordlings, and half-articulated songs of thought.Greetings, waves of greetings, sliding back down into the inarticulate, words breaking together.A crash of sorrow on the shores of Earth.Waves of joy on--where? A world indescribably found, indescribably arrived at, indescribably wet, a song of water.A fugue of voices now, clamoring explanations, of a disaster unavertable, a world to be destroyed, a surge of helplessness, a spasm of despair, a dying fall, again the break of words.And then the fling of hope, the finding of a shadow Earth in the implications of enfolded time, submerged dimensions, the pull of parallels, the deep pull, the spin of will, the hurl and split of it, the fight. A new Earth pulled into replacement, the dolphins gone.Then stunningly a single voice, quite clear."This bowl was brought to you by the Campaign to Save the Humans. We bid you farewell."And then the sound of long, heavy, perfectly gray bodies rolling away into an unknown fathomless deep, quietly giggling.” - Douglas Adams

18. “I wish I could describe the feeling of being at sea, the anguish, frustration, and fear, the beauty that accompanies threatening spectacles, the spiritual communion with creatures in whose domain I sail. There is a magnificent intensity in life that comes when we are not in control but are only reacting, living, surviving. I am not a religious man per se. My own cosmology is convoluted and not in line with any particular church or philosphy. But for me, to go to sea is to glimpse the face of God. At sea i am reminded of my insignificance-- of all men's insignificance. It is a wonderful feeling to be so humbled.” - Steve Callahan

19. “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

20. “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

21. “Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness.” - Raymond Chandler

22. “Unlike a fountain that circulates the same water in an enclosed, perpetually recycling system, a human being circulates thoughts in an unlimited reservoir of self.Don't limit yourself to being a mere fountain when you contain an ocean.” - Vera Nazarian

23. “She loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.” - Holly Black

24. “Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever i find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet... I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.” - Herman Melville

25. “She was crouched in the corner of the room, eating something off the floor. It was the old woman dressed in endless black. When she looked up this time there was no question she was there for me. She had the face of my mother but much older, her ancient decayed mouth coming closer for her good-night kiss. I steeled myself against her putrid smell, the mouthful of bitter dust, but as her lips touched mine it was like biting into a purple black plum whose fruit was brilliant red, like an explosion of intense joy. Its childhood smell wrinkled my nose with pleasure, its sweet juices ran down my chin, turning into a beautiful black ocean where I floated safely, not lost as I had imagined, but securely tucked away deep in space.” - Mary Woronov

26. “Here we go mother on the shipless ocean.Pity us, pity the ocean, here we go.” - Anne Carson

27. “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 as 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

28. “It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

29. “There were three things sought by invaders who crossed oceans to discover America. Those were gold, gospel, glory. There are four things sought by aliens who crossed heavens to discover planet earth. Those are gold, gospel, glory, gene.” - Toba Beta

30. “Darwin may have been quite correct in his theory that man descended from the apes of the forest, but surely woman rose from the frothy sea, as resplendent as Aphrodite on her scalloped chariot.” - Margot Datz

31. “The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas.It is the night sea journey, the lone fisherman on a tropical sea with his nets, and you let these nets down - sometimes, something tears through them that leaves them in shreds and you just row for shore, and put your head under your bed and pray. At other times what slips through are the minutiae, the minnows of this ichthyological metaphor of idea chasing.But, sometimes, you can actually bring home something that is food, food for the human community that we can sustain ourselves on and go forward.” - Terence McKenna

32. “I felt the full breadth and depth of the ocean around the sphere of the Earth, back billions of years to the beginning of life, across all the passing lives and deaths, the endless waves of swimming joy and quiet losses of exquisite creatures with fins and fronds, tentacles and wings, colourful and transparent, tiny and huge, coming and going. There is nothing the ocean has not seen” - Sally Andrew

33. “Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought of which the sea would not be part.” - Hermann Broch

34. “And finally the two of them plunged into the dark sea, a sea like a pack of wolves, and they dove around the boat trying to find young Reiter's body, with no success, until they had to come up for air, and before they dove again, they asked the men on the boat whether the brat had surfaced. And then, under the weight of the negative response, they disappeared once more among the dark waves like forest beasts and one of the men who hadn't been in before joined them, and it was he who some fifteen feet down spotted the body of young Reiter floating like uprooted seaweed, upward, a brilliant white in the underwater space, and it was he who grabbed the body under the arms and brought him up, and also he who made the young Reiter vomit all the water he had swallowed.” - Roberto Bolaño

35. “What an incomparable creature is the sea! ("Absolute Evil")” - Julian Hawthorne

36. “At beyond continent of reality, there are oceans of ideas.” - Toba Beta [Betelgeuse Incident]

37. “...this beginning motion, this first time when a sail truly filled and the boat took life and knifed across the lake under perfect control, this was so beautiful it stopped my breath...” - Gary Paulsen

38. “We clear the harbor and the wind catches her sails and my beautiful ship leans over ever so gracefully, and her elegant bow cuts cleanly into the increasing chop of the waves. I take a deep breath and my chest expands and my heart starts thumping so strongly I fear the others might see it beat through the cloth of my jacket. I face the wind and my lips peel back from my teeth in a grin of pure joy.” - L.A. Meyer

39. “Increasingly, we will be faced with a choice: whether to keep the oceans for wild fish or farmed fish. Farming domesticated species in close proximity with wild fish will mean that domesticated fish always win. Nobody in the world of policy appears to be asking what is best for society, wild fish or farmed fish. And what sort of farmed fish, anyway? Were this question to be asked, and answered honestly, we might find that our interests lay in prioritizing wild fish and making their ecosystems more productive by leaving them alone enough of the time.” - Charles Clover

40. “The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities... If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.” - Rachel Carson

41. “I heard silence, silence infinite as the bottom of the ocean, a silence that sealed.” - Anne Spollen

42. “For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.” - Jacques-Yves Cousteau

43. “to split the very sea into ours and theirs." Border at the BeachAnd More White Sheets” - Eileen Clemens Granfors

44. “Shearwater sighed, like a whale in the night.” - Aldous Huxley

45. “I ain’t afraid to drown if that means I’m deep up in your ocean.” - Chris Brown

46. “Screw sharks; a Transformer could be stretching up on its tippy toes and would still have a mile of cover to eat me.” - Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Draus

47. “American whale oil lit the world. It was used in the production of soap, textiles, leather, paints, and varnishes, and it lubricated the tools and machines that drove the Industrial Revolution. The baleen cut from the mouths of whales shaped the course of feminine fashion by putting the hoop in hooped skirts and giving form to stomachtighteningand chest-crushing corsets. Spermaceti, the waxy substance from the heads of sperm whales, produced the brightest- and cleanest-burning candles the world has ever known, while ambergris, a byproduct of irritation in a sperm whale’s bowel, gave perfumes great staying power and was worth its weight in gold.” - Eric Jay Dolin

48. “The heroic and often tragic stories of American whalemen were renowned. They sailed the world’s oceans and brought back tales filled with bravery, perseverance, endurance, and survival. They mutinied, murdered, rioted, deserted, drank, sang, spun yarns, scrimshawed, and recorded their musings and observations in journals and letters. They survived boredom, backbreaking work, tempestuous seas, floggings, pirates, putrid food, and unimaginable cold. Enemies preyed on them in times of war, and competitors envied them in times of peace. Many whalemen died from violent encounters with whales and from terrible miscalculations about the unforgiving nature of nature itself. And through it all, whalemen, those “iron men in wooden boats” created a legacy of dramatic, poignant, and at times horrific stories that can still stir our emotions and animate the most primal part of our imaginations. “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme,” proclaimed Herman Melville, and the epic story of whaling is one of the mightiest themes in American history.” - Eric Jay Dolin

49. “We all have an edge. We all are floating our psyche on top with a great ocean underneath.” - Brad Dourif

50. “Shandy looked ahead. Blackbeard, apparently willing to get the explanation later, had picked up his oars and was rowing again. 'May I presume to suggest,' yelled Shandy giddily to Davies, 'that we preoceed the hell out of here with all due haste.' Davies pushed a stray lock of hair back from his forehead and sat down on the rower's thwart. 'My dear fellow consider it done.” - Tim Powers

51. “Mr. Bird flung his food away and leaped to his feet, glaring around at no one in particular. 'I am not a dog!' he shouted agrily, his gold earrings flashing in the firelight.” - Tim Powers

52. “The children had had an argument once about whether there was more grass in the world or more sand, and Roger said that of course there must be more sand because of under the sea; in every ocean all over the world there would be sand, if you looked deep down. But there could be grass too, argued Deborah, a waving grass, a grass that nobody had ever seen, and the colour of that ocean grass would be darker than any grass on the surface of the world, in fields or prairies or people's gardens in America. It would be taller than tress and it would move like corn in the wind. ("The Pool” - Daphne du Maurier

53. “It was like trying to bail out an ocean of water with a teaspoon.” - Jodi Picoult

54. “When the ship approached the equator, I stopped going out on deck in the daytime. The sun burned like a flame. The days had shortened and night came swiftly. One moment it was light, the next it was dark. The sun did not set but fell into the water like a meteor. Late in the evening, when I went out briefly, a hot wind slapped my face. From the ocean came a roar of passions that seemed to have broken through all barriers:'We mus procreate and multiply! We must exhaust all the powers of lust!' The waves glowed like lava, and I imagined I could see multitudes of living beings - algae, whales, sea monsters - reveling in an orgy, from the surface to the bottom of the sea. Immortality was the law here. The whole planet raged with animation. At times, I heard my name in the clamor: the spirit of the abyss calling me to join them in their nocturnal dance. ("Hanka")” - Isaac Bashevis Singer

55. “A pool just isn't the same as the ocean. It has no energy. No life.” - Linda Gerber

56. “I never tired of picturing sharks.” - Eileen Granfors

57. “Do you ever think about the ocean?" Nick asked me."What about it?" I said."Like what could live down there? Like how there's as much life down there as up here? Maybe more?""God Lives Underwater," said someone. "That's the name of a band. They're awesome.""But seriously," Nick said, "it's like an alternate universe. Right here on our own planet.""Right here, a hundred feet from us," said Sheila."Right here in my hair," said one of the girls who had swum, pulling some sea gunk out of her wet hair.Everyone laughed quietly at that. Nick drank his beer. The wood crackled as it burned. We all stared at the black ocean.” - Blake Nelson

58. “‎I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that I'm touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again.” - Lauren DeStefano

59. “I couldn't imagine living in a state that didn't reach the ocean. It was a giant reset button. You could go to the edge of the land and see infinity and feel renewed.” - Avery Sawyer

60. “I'm always happy when I'm surrounded by water, I think I'm a Mermaid or I was a mermaid.The ocean makes me feel really small and it makes me put my whole life into perspective… it humbles you and makes you feel almost like you’ve been baptized. I feel born again when I get out of the ocean.” - Beyoncé Knowles

61. “My room was in one of those turrets and at night I could hear the sea and the faint rustle of eelgrass in the soft wind. The weather was perfect that summer. No storms. Blue skies and just the right amount of wind every day. The sailors were in heaven.” - Katherine Hall Page

62. “Your heart is like the ocean, mysterious and dark.” - Bob Dylan

63. “When Rachel Carson accepted the National Book Award, she said, 'if there is poetry in my book about the sea it is not because I deliberately put it there but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out poetry.” - Jim Lynch

64. “…have poets write about you as if you are alive. Scientifically, it is absolutely true, you are alive. You have a pulse, the waves, and a metabolism, the food chain. A personality, a character, a consciousness, and a sense of purpose…try this- turn into spray, spin rainbows…wear down entire mountains and dump them in layers…gently surround marina sea grass twice a day, protecting and feeding thousands of crabs, ducks, and geese…fill human eyes with warm salt brine at least once a month… Becoming Water” - Susan Zwinger

65. “All matter, including you and I, has rhythmic movement within it and our quest should be to create a proper rhythmic harmony within ourselves…you feel happy when you sit near an ocean because your vibrations try to synchronize with the frequency of the waves.” - Ed Viswanathan

66. “all my life i have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper just running down the edges of different countries and continents, looking for something.” - Elizabeth Bishop

67. “[The waves] move across a faint horizon, the rush of love and the surge of grief, the respite of peace and then fear again, the heart that beats and then lies still, the rise and fall and rise and fall of all of it, the incoming and the outgoing, the infinite procession of life. And the ocean wraps the earth, a reminder. The mysteries come forward in waves.” - Susan Casey

68. “Don’t you dare come into my world and tell me what color the ocean is! It’s black. Black as midnight. Black and awful!” - Nadia Scrieva

69. “I thought of you and how you love this beauty,And walking up the long beach all aloneI heard the waves breaking in measured thunderAs you and I once heard their monotone.Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond meThe cold and sparkling silver of the sea --We two will pass through death and ages lengthenBefore you hear that sound again with me.” - Sarah Teasdale

70. “In school I ended up writing three different papers on "The Castaway" section of Moby-Dick, the chapter where the cabin boy Pip falls overboard and is driven mad by the empty immensity of what he finds himself floating in. And when I teach school now I always teach Crane's horrific "The Open Boat," and get all bent out of shape when the kids find the story dull or jaunty-adventurish: I want them to feel the same marrow-level dread of the oceanic I've always felt, the intuition of the sea as primordial nada, bottomless, depths inhabited by cackling tooth-studded things rising toward you at the rate a feather falls.” - David Foster Wallace

71. “OvermodulationBy Charlotte M Liebel-FawlsYou're a cavity in my oasis,You're a porthole in my sea,You're a stretch of the imagination every time you look at me.You're an ocean in my wineglass,You're a Steinway on the beach,You're a captivating audience, an exciting Rembrandt,A Masterpiece.” - Charlotte M. Liebel

72. “The smell of the sea, of kelp and fish and bitter moving water, rose stronger in my nostrils. It flooded my consciousness like an ancestral memory. The swells rose sluggishly and fell away, casting up dismal gleams between the boards of the pier. And the whole pier rose and fell in stiff and creaking mimicry, dancing its long slow dance of dissolution. I reached the end and saw no one, heard nothing but my footsteps and the creak of the beams, the slap of waves on the pilings. It was a fifteen-foot drop to the dim water. The nearest land ahead of me was Hawaii.” - Ross Macdonald

73. “Whenever I look at the ocean, I always want to talk to people, but when I'm talking to people, I always want to look at the ocean.” - Haruki Murakami

74. “The ocean filled the footprints where a boy and cat had stood.” - Lloyd Alexander

75. “I meet people and they enforce me their culture and then I choose to fly away and I meet other people and these people force me their religion and I wanna fly away. I meet other people, these people are silent, we begin to sing the song of the ocean and then we fly away together ~” - Grigoris Deoudis

76. “Tell her thisAnd more,—That the king of the seasWeeps too, old, helpless man.The bustling fatesHeap his hands with corpsesUntil he stands like a childWith surplus of toys.” - Stephen Crane

77. “The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering and the prognostications and the turmoil, the disagreements and the fateful decisions and agreements and the plans and the programs and the threats and the counter threats, then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: "So soon?" E. B. White "On A Florida Key” - E. B. White

78. “I could be blindfolded and dropped into the deepest ocean and I would know where to find you. I could be buried a hundred miles underground and I would know where you are.” - Neil Gaiman

79. “But in a way you can say that after leaving the sea, after all those millions of years of living inside of the sea, we took the ocean with us. When a woman makes a baby, she gives it water, inside her body, to grow in. That water inside her body is almost exactly the same as the water of the sea. It is salty, by just the same amount. She makes a little ocean, in her body. And not only this. Our blood and our sweating, they are both salty, almost exactly like the water from the sea is salty. We carry oceans inside of us, in our blood and our sweat. And we are crying the oceans, in our tears.” - Gregory David Roberts

80. “The last glow of sundown dims away. Stars appear in the east. Night encloses us. The ocean seems to enlarge. When you’re adrift at night, imagination and perception merge. They have to. You can’t see as well, as far, as deep. You tie knots by muscle memory, and you operate your reel mostly by feel. Your boat drifts, your thoughts drift. You sense the sweep of tide and water, and the boat gets rocked in turbulence just past each undersea ridgeline and boulder field. You, too, are looking up, searching constellations, dreaming. You fell again how flexible and expansive your mind can be when it’s working right. And you slip your leash to explore the vast vault of sky and great interior spaces.” - Carl Safina

81. “I don't trust the ocean, either; it would kill me as soon as not. It doesn't mean I'm afraid of it.” - Maggie Stiefvater

82. “Should you ever feel too lonely...listen for the roar of the sea- for in it are all those who've been and all those who are to come.” - Simon Van Booy

83. “When I walk down the beach and smell the salt water, hear the waves crashing against the shoreline, and feel the granular sand under my feet, I can't help but realize why I'm here on this green earth” - Wendy Joubert

84. “The world is a navy in an empty ocean.” - Dejan Stojanovic

85. “A broken heart, too much cold beer, ocean waves and a willing man were never a good combination, no matter what the country songs said.” - Patti Callahan Henry

86. “Lex surfed wicked, like the devil. He wasn’t afraid of anything, seemed like. He grinned at West as the waves came up toward them like towers of green glass, an emerald city. We’re off to see the wizard, he shouted. He whooped. His body crouched ready to fly. He shone against the sun.” - Francesca Lia Block

87. “I wonder if the ocean smells different on the other side of the world.” - J.A. Redmerski

88. “From the very beginningperplexing and wanderingfrom one ocean to anotheran everlasting wander” - Rixa White

89. “I stare at Hans. Hans is shaped like an industrial-sized refrigerator. His hands are like cinder blocks.He should not be afraid of a little thing like the ocean.” - Cyn Balog

90. “My love for you reaches beyond the borders of continents, so vast in scope that I would cross oceans to be with you.Yes, but does that same love penetrate so deep as to dare thee to sink to the oceans' depths to find me?"-from "My Aquarius” - Richelle E. Goodrich

91. “Tell me once more about the eternal surf.” - Rob Bignell

92. “...you need to travel to see the ocean - I don't need the ocean - I have the sky...” - John Geddes

93. “I see an ocean that’s spilled out of a wineglass, its body clear and sparkling and folding over itself. I see a ribbon of sand.” - Lauren DeStefano

94. “This time as we ascend, I watch the world sinking below us. I watch the way the city fades into sand that gets washed by the ocean.” - Lauren DeStefano

95. “He talks softly, patiently, as I sit on the window ledge and watch boats with colorful triangles for sails scratch the ocean.” - Lauren DeStefano

96. “Thus was this expedition finished...after having, by its event, strongly evinced this important truth; that though prudence, intrepidity and perseverence united are not exempted from the blows of adverse fortune, yet in a long series of transactions they usually rise superior to its power, and in the end rarely fail of proving successful.Voyage Around The World, 1751” - Admiral George Anson

97. “She remembers sprinting over the thin after-waves that slid over each other like sheets of glass. When she ran with the waves it looked like she wasn’t moving. When she ran against them it looked like she was flying. She refuses to believe her brother will never know these things. Somewhere, they will find sand.” - Isaac Marion

98. “I was always an unusual girl.My mother told me I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean.” - Lana Del Rey

99. “He was beneath the waves, a creature crawling the ocean bottom.” - Doppo Kunikida

100. “Something, most certainly, happens to a diver’s emotions underwater. It is not merely a side effect of the pleasing, vaguely erotic sensation of water pressure on the body. Nor is it alone the peculiar sense of weightlessness, which permits a diver to hang motionless in open water, observing sea life large as whales around him; not the ability of a diver, descending in that condition, to slowly tumble and rotate in all three spatial planes. It is not the exhilaration from disorientation that comes when one’s point of view starts to lose its “lefts” and “down” and gains instead something else, a unique perception that grows out of the ease of movement in three dimensions. It is not from the diminishment of gravity to a force little more emphatic than a suggestion. It is not solely exposure to an unfamiliar intensity of life. It is not a state of rapture with the bottomless blue world beneath one’s feet…it is some complicated mix of these emotions, together with the constant proximity of real terror.” - Barry Lopez

101. “I watched the enormity of the clouds for several minutes. What I wanted to experience in the water, I realized, was how life of the reef was layered and intertwined. I now had many individual pieces at hand: named images, nouns. How were they related? What were the verbs? Which syntaxes were indigenous to the place? I asked a dozen knowledgeable people. No one was inclined to elaborate- or they didn’t know. “Did you see the octopus?” Someone shouted after the dive. Yes, I thought, but who among us knows what it was doing? What else was THERE, just then? WHY?” - Barry Lopez

102. “The evening before I departed I stood on the rim of a lagoon on Isla Rabida. Flamingos rode on its dark surface like pink swans, apparently asleep. Small, curved feathers, shed from their breasts, drifted away from them over the water on a light breeze. I did not move for an hour. It was a moment of such peace, every troubled thread in a human spirit might have uncoiled and sorted itself into a graceful order. Other flamingos stood in the shallows with diffident elegance in the falling light, not feeding but only staring off toward the ocean. They seemed a kind of animal I had never quite seen before.” - Barry Lopez

103. “The ocean was one of the greatest things he had ever seen in his life—bigger and deeper than anything he had imagined. It changed its color and shape and expression according to time and place and weather. It aroused a deep sadness in his heart, and at the same time it brought his heart peace and comfort.” - Haruki Murakami

104. “A friend of mine commented yesterday that she has experienced similar insights that I talked about that all enlightened Masters and founders of religion are actually talking about the same ocean, the same invisible life source, the same God. She also said that she worked in a Christan environment at the time that she received these insights, and when she tried to share these insights with the Christians she was accused of being "impure" and of being associated with the "Devil". Christians hold on to the idea that Jesus was the only son of God, without realizing that we are all son's and daughter's of God. By holding on to the idea that Jesus is the only son of God, they do not either to realize that all enlightened Masters are talking about the same God. Jesus did not talk about faith, he talked about trust. He talked about discovering a trust in yourself and in relationship to God. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you. In Christianity, the church has become the intermediate between man and God, and people who claim that they have found a direct relationship to God are accused of blasphemy. The Christan church has become a barrier between man and God, and anyone who has declared that he has found a direct relationship to God are immediately banned by the church, for example Master Eckhart and Franciskus of Assisi. I have always had a deep love for Jesus, but it is not the picture of Jesus that the Christian church presents. I was a disciple of Jesus in a former life, and was thrown to the lions in Colosseum in Rome as one of the early Christians. Jesus had many more disciples than the twelve disciples mentioned in The Bible. In this life, I resigned my automatic membership in the church as soon as I could think for myself when I was 15 years old. I was also disgusted with an organization that said that they preached love and which has murdered more people than Hitler. My experience with these rare and precious insights are that they expand our consciousness of reality. They are gradual initiations into reality. They may fade away, but we will never be the same again after receiving them. They will also come more and more, the more committment we have to our spiritual growth.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

105. “Meditation expands our inner being. The inner being is like a small, individual river flowering towards the Ocean. In meditation, I feel how my inner being expands into an inner ocean, which is part of everything, which is one with Existence. Through the inner being, we come in contact with the inner ocean, the undefined and boundless within ourselves, where we are one with life. We realize that God is part of life. We realize that God is not a person, but the consciousness that is part of everything. We find God in a flower, in a tree, in the eyes of a child or in a playful dog. Through discovering our inner being, we discover that we are also part of the flower, the child or the dog. We realize that God is everywhere.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

106. “After we became a couple, she composed our time together. She planned days as if they were artistic events. One afternoon we went to Tybee Island for a picnic; we ate blueberries and drank champagne tinted with curacao and listened to Miles Davis, and when I asked the name of her perfume, she said it was L'Heure Bleue.She talked about 'perfect moments.' One such moment happened that afternoon; she'd been napping; I lay next to her, reading. She said, 'I'll always remember the sounds of the sea and of pages turning, and the smell of L'Heure Bleue. For me they signify love.” - Susan Hubbard

107. “Most people new to a city on the ocean would probably go to the beach during the day when there are people around. I, on the other hand, decided to try a midnight swim at the somewhat gamy Santa Monica pier, by myself. That is, until a nearby guard kicked me off the beach for my own safety.” - Kathy Griffin

108. “Wherever people go to find peace - that's what I find in the ocean.” - Willow Aster

109. “But it hadn't just been Sebastian who had been watching me. Rather, it had been tribes of merman and mermaids, who had been curious about this newcomer in town that could outswim any school of small fish.” - Keira D. Skye

110. “He looked steadily in my eyes, and held my hand affectionally. “Narissa, let me take you away to a world that you have never known to exist.” - Keira D. Skye

111. “The plane banked, and he pressed his face against the cold window. The ocean tilted up to meet him, its dark surface studded with points of light that looked like constellations, fallen stars. The tourist sitting next to him asked him what they were. Nathan explained that the bright lights marked the boundaries of the ocean cemeteries. The lights that were fainter were memory buoys. They were the equivalent of tombstones on land: they marked the actual graves. While he was talking he noticed scratch-marks on the water, hundreds of white gashes, and suddenly the captain's voice, crackling over the intercom, interrupted him. The ships they could see on the right side of the aircraft were returning from a rehearsal for the service of remembrance that was held on the ocean every year. Towards the end of the week, in case they hadn't realised, a unique festival was due to take place in Moon Beach. It was known as the Day of the Dead......When he was young, it had been one of the days he most looked forward to. Yvonne would come and stay, and she'd always bring a fish with her, a huge fish freshly caught on the ocean, and she'd gut it on the kitchen table. Fish should be eaten, she'd said, because fish were the guardians of the soul, and she was so powerful in her belief that nobody dared to disagree. He remembered how the fish lay gaping on its bed of newspaper, the flesh dark-red and subtly ribbed where it was split in half, and Yvonne with her sleeves rolled back and her wrists dipped in blood that smelt of tin.It was a day that abounded in peculiar traditions. Pass any candy store in the city and there'd be marzipan skulls and sugar fish and little white chocolate bones for 5 cents each. Pass any bakery and you'd see cakes slathered in blue icing, cakes sprinkled with sea-salt.If you made a Day of the Dead cake at home you always hid a coin in it, and the person who found it was supposed to live forever. Once, when she was four, Georgia had swallowed the coin and almost choked. It was still one of her favourite stories about herself. In the afternoon, there'd be costume parties. You dressed up as Lazarus or Frankenstein, or you went as one of your dead relations. Or, if you couldn't think of anything else, you just wore something blue because that was the colour you went when you were buried at the bottom of the ocean. And everywhere there were bowls of candy and slices of special home-made Day of the Dead cake. Nobody's mother ever got it right. You always had to spit it out and shove it down the back of some chair. Later, when it grew dark, a fleet of ships would set sail for the ocean cemeteries, and the remembrance service would be held. Lying awake in his room, he'd imagine the boats rocking the the priest's voice pushed and pulled by the wind. And then, later still, after the boats had gone, the dead would rise from the ocean bed and walk on the water. They gathered the flowers that had been left as offerings, they blew the floating candles out. Smoke that smelt of churches poured from the wicks, drifted over the slowly heaving ocean, hid their feet. It was a night of strange occurrences. It was the night that everyone was Jesus......Thousands drove in for the celebrations. All Friday night the streets would be packed with people dressed head to toe in blue. Sometimes they painted their hands and faces too. Sometimes they dyed their hair. That was what you did in Moon Beach. Turned blue once a year. And then, sooner or later, you turned blue forever.” - Rupert Thomson

112. “Start with your heart, and only good can follow!” - Ocean

113. “Kitapus pievelės juodavo vėją užstojanti pušų giraitė, iš už kurios atsklisdavo bangų mūša. Nuožmių Ramiojo vandenyno bangų. Jos ošė sodriais ir niūriais balsais it daugybė susispietusių sielų, šnabždančių kiekviena savo istorijas. Ir atrodė, kad prisidėti prie šio choro ir papasakoti kitų istorijų trokšta dar daugiau sielų.” - Haruki Murakami

114. “I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.” - Le Testament d'Orphée

115. “All we can hope for is that he will fall into the ocean with a bar of soap in his pocket.” - Eoin Colfer

116. “If so, then it was also here where I came to know I can survive what hurts. I believed in my capacity to stand back up and run into the waves again and again, no matter the risk.” - Terry Tempest Williams