OCEAN QUOTES III
quotations about the ocean
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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
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"Sweet Thing"
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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 turned away from the ocean
as not to fall for its plea
for it used to seduce and consume me
and there was this one night
a few years back and I was not yet accustomed to farewells
and just like now I stood waving long after the ship was gone.
But I was younger then and easily fooled
and the ocean was deep and dark and blue
and I took my shoes off to let the water freeze my bones.
I waded until I could no longer walk and it was too cold to swim but still
I kept on walking at the bottom of the sea for I could not tell the
difference between the ocean and the lack of someone I loved and I had
not yet learned how the task of moving on is as necessary as survival.
CHARLOTTE ERIKSSON
attributed, goodreads
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
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
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
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
The Silmarillion
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"
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
Waves are the voices of tides. Tides are life.... They bring new food for shore creatures, and take ships out to sea. They are the ocean's pulse, and our own heartbeat.
TAMORA PIERCE
Sandry's Book
Crime and the sea have always mixed, pirates ever since there have been ships, law ends with the land, man is nothing out there, a few bubbles as he goes down under the mindless waves.
JOHN UPDIKE
Rabbit at Rest
A pool just isn't the same as the ocean. It has no energy. No life.
LINDA GERBER
Death by Bikini
The land is dearer for the sea,
The ocean for the shore.
LUCY LARCOM
On the Beach
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
Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
Thanatopsis
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
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
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
The ocean is powerful, but not invincible. It is rich, but not inexhaustible. For humans to thrive in the coming centuries, we will have to be smarter about how we approach the 70 percent of our planet the ocean covers.
GARY E. KNELL
"Securing a Bold, Blue, and Prosperous Future for Our Ocean", National Geographic, January 27, 2017