“Augustine, the father of theologians, was walking on the ocean shore and pondering over the truth, "three distinct persons, not separate, but distinct; and yet but one God;" and he came upon a little boy that was playing with a colored sea- shell, scooping a hole in the sand, and then going down to the waves and getting his shell full of water and putting it into the hole. Augustine said, "What are you doing, my little fellow? " The boy replied, "I am going to pour the sea into that hole." "Ah," said Augustine, "that is what I have been attempting. Standing at the ocean of infinity, I have attempted to grasp it with my finite mind."”

— Joseph Dare (reverend)

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 421.

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Joseph Dare (reverend) 5

Australian clergyman 1831–1880

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“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton (1855) by Sir David Brewster (Volume II. Ch. 27). Compare: "As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore", John Milton, Paradise Regained, Book iv. Line 330

“It’s only the sea,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Every wave that dies on the beach sings a little song to a shell. But you mustn’t go inside because it’s a labyrinth and you may never come out again.”

Tove Jansson book Comet in Moominland

Source: Comet in Moominland

“The bomb will not start a chain-reaction in the water converting it all to gas and letting all the ships on all the oceans drop down to the bottom. It will not blow out the bottom of the sea and let all the water run down the hole. It will not destroy gravity. I am not an atomic playboy, as one of my critics labeled me, exploding these bombs to satisfy my personal whim.”

William H. P. Blandy (1890–1954) American admiral

As Vice Admiral, Commander Joint Task Force One in Operation Crossroads
Quoted in Gerard J. De Groot, The Bomb: A Life p. 119.

“In Castleford, where I was born, there are what are called sand holes. They are caves where the sand has been excavated and they run into the side of certain hillsides, quite a long distance, and you can get lost in them. Now these had a fascination for me, and as boys we would take a reel of cotton many yards long and go into the caves. But one wouldn't go further than the cotton because it was dark. You wouldn't know your way back. In those days there weren't flash lamps, so one only had a match or something, and the matches were these brimstone matches. And the caves always had this fascination for me, these holes did. Digging into something always had this fascination for me. So I think it's not so much Archipenko, because the Archipenko hole is a decorative one. I mean he makes a hole in a breast instead of a fullness, but the hole acts the same.”

Henry Moore (1898–1986) English artist

1970 and later
Source: The Donald Caroll interviews, Talmy Franklin, London 1973, p. 378

“The Shell

The sea fills my ear
with sand and with fear.

You may wash out the sand,
but never the sound
of the ghost of the sea
that is haunting me.”

Ted Hughes (1930–1998) English poet and children's writer

Source: The Mermaid's Purse: poems by Ted Hughes

“Alone I walked on the ocean strand,
A pearly shell was in my hand;
I stooped, and wrote upon the sand
My name, the year, the day.
As onward from the sport I passed,
One lingering look behind I cast,
A wave came rolling high and fast,
And washed my lines away.”

Hannah Flagg Gould (1788–1865) American writer

"A Name In the Sand"

“I know perfectly well that I am nothing to anyone. But the middle finger is no longer than the pinky if one measures both against infinity; or if one clenches one's fist.... Even if a mouse came to me and said that it was going to fly over the ocean, and an eagle said it was thinking of digging itself a hole in the ground, I would say, 'Go ahead.'”

Halldór Laxness (1902–1998) Icelandic author

Jón of Skagi
Brekkukotsannáll (The Fish Can Sing) (1957)

“He loved me true did Harry-boy and I loved him true, and if the happiness we gave each other was wicked and wrong in the eyes of the Law and the Church and God Almighty, then the Law and the Church and God Almighty can go dig a hole and fall down it.”

Noel Coward (1899–1973) English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer

Me and the Girls (1964).

“If I hadn't been lying in a hole I'd dug with my hands and helmet, that shell would probably have finished me off. The hole was only six or eight inches deep, but that makes an awful lot of difference, and it looked like a canyon.”

James Jones (1921–1977) American author

Letter to his brother Jeff from Guadalcanal (28 January 1943); p. 25
To Reach Eternity (1989)
Context: I wasn't hit very badly — a piece of shrapnel went thru my helmet and cut a nice little hole in the back of my head. It didn't fracture the skull and is healed up nicely now. I don't know what happened to my helmet; the shell landed close to me and when I came to, the helmet was gone. The concussion together with the fragment that hit me must have broken the chinstrap and torn it off my head. It also blew my glasses off my face. I never saw them again, either, but I imagine they are smashed to hell. If I hadn't been lying in a hole I'd dug with my hands and helmet, that shell would probably have finished me off. The hole was only six or eight inches deep, but that makes an awful lot of difference, and it looked like a canyon.

“This was a watering hole, and watering holes drew the hungry as well as the parched.”

Alastair Reynolds book Terminal World

Source: Terminal World (2010), Chapter 16 (p. 265)

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Joseph Dare (reverend) 5

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