Quotes about ocean
page 8

“Time in her eyes is spawning past life,
One with the ocean and the woman unfurled,
Holding all the love that waits for you here.”

John Carder Bush (1944) British artist; brother of Kate Bush

This portion of the track "Jig of Life" on his sister Kate's album Hounds of Love (1985) was actually written as well as spoken by JCB.
Jig of Life (1985)
Context: Can't you see where memories are kept bright?
Tripping on the water like a laughing girl.
Time in her eyes is spawning past life,
One with the ocean and the woman unfurled,
Holding all the love that waits for you here.
Catch us now for I am your future.
A kiss on the wind and we'll make the land.
Come over here to where When lingers,
Waiting in this empty world,
Waiting for Then, when the lifespray cools.
For Now does ride in on the curl of the wave,
And you will dance with me in the sunlit pools.
We are of the going water and the gone.
We are of water in the holy land of water
And all that's to come runs in
With the thrust on the strand.

Edward Teller photo

“But when the temperature does rise by a few degrees over the whole globe, there is a possibility that the icecaps will start melting and the level of the oceans will begin to rise.”

Edward Teller (1908–2003) Hungarian-American nuclear physicist

As quoted in Benjamin Franta, "On its 100th birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming" https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward-teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warming, ', 1 January 2018.
Context: At present the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen by 2 per cent over normal. By 1970, it will be perhaps 4 per cent, by 1980, 8 per cent, by 1990, 16 per cent [about 360 parts per million, by Teller’s accounting], if we keep on with our exponential rise in the use of purely conventional fuels. By that time, there will be a serious additional impediment for the radiation leaving the earth. Our planet will get a little warmer. It is hard to say whether it will be 2 degrees Fahrenheit or only one or 5.
But when the temperature does rise by a few degrees over the whole globe, there is a possibility that the icecaps will start melting and the level of the oceans will begin to rise. Well, I don’t know whether they will cover the Empire State Building or not, but anyone can calculate it by looking at the map and noting that the icecaps over Greenland and over Antarctica are perhaps five thousand feet thick.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto photo

“There is the beauty of the flowers and the forests, of the azure oceans and the meandering rivers. There is the splendour of architecture, the magnificence of music, and the sparkle of the dance. Above all, there is the beauty of man and woman, the most perfect creations of God.”

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928–1979) Fourth President and ninth Prime Minister of Pakistan

Source: Letter to his daughter (1978), p. 78 - 79
Context: Earlier, I have cautioned you against an outright pragmatist approach. Now I am cautioning you against an outright populist approach. Sometimes a populist decision is, in the long run, not beneficial to the masses. Neither pragmatism nor populism are fundamental political and socio-economic doctrines. Nor do I say that you should play it by ear. I have made this melancholy analysis in anguish. My jail surroundings have not influenced my objectivity. I do not want to see the whole world in a death-cell merely because I am in a death cell. I do not say that the High Court has pronounced a death sentence on the world because a law court has pronounced a perverse death sentence on me. I would be the happiest man if the gloomy winter of mankind were to give way to a shaft of sunlight and to coloured flowers. The world is very beautiful. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever". There is the beauty of the landscape, of the tall mountain, the green plains, the humped deserts. There is the beauty of the flowers and the forests, of the azure oceans and the meandering rivers. There is the splendour of architecture, the magnificence of music, and the sparkle of the dance. Above all, there is the beauty of man and woman, the most perfect creations of God.

E.E. Cummings photo

“Art is a mystery.
A mystery is something immeasurable.
In so far as every child and woman and man may be immeasurable, art is the mystery of every man and woman and child. In so far as a human being is an artist, skies and mountains and oceans and thunderbolts and butterflies are immeasurable; and art is every mystery of nature.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

"Foreword to an Exhibit: I" (1944)
Context: Art is a mystery.
A mystery is something immeasurable.
In so far as every child and woman and man may be immeasurable, art is the mystery of every man and woman and child. In so far as a human being is an artist, skies and mountains and oceans and thunderbolts and butterflies are immeasurable; and art is every mystery of nature. Nothing measurable can be alive; nothing which is not alive can be art; nothing which cannot be art is true: and everything untrue doesn’t matter a very good God damn...

Hartley Coleridge photo

“The soul of man is larger than the sky,
Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark
Of the unfathomed center.”

Hartley Coleridge (1796–1849) British poet, biographer, essayist, and teacher

"To Shakespeare"
Poems (1851)
Context: The soul of man is larger than the sky,
Deeper than ocean, or the abysmal dark
Of the unfathomed center. Like that ark,
Which in its sacred hold uplifted high,
O'er the drowned hills, the human family,
And stock reserved of every living kind,
So, in the compass of the single mind,
The seeds and pregnant forms in essence lie,
That make all worlds. Great poet, 'twas thy art
To know thyself, and in thyself to be
Whate'er Love, Hate, Ambition, Destiny,
Or the firm, fatal purpose of the Heart
Can make of Man. Yet thou wert still the same,
Serene of thought, unhurt by thy own flame.

Georges Clemenceau photo

“America is far away and protected by the ocean, England could not be reached by Napoleon himself. You are sheltered, both of you; we are not.”

Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929) French politician

Speech at the Paris Peace Conference (27 March 1919), quoted in Anthony Adamthwaite, Grandeur and Misery: France's Bid for Power in Europe 1914-1940 (London: Arnold, 1995), p. 40.
Context: After expending the greatest effort, and suffering the greatest sacrifices in blood in all history, we must not compromise the results of our victory... if the League of Nations cannot buttress its orders with military sanctions we must find this sanction elsewhere... I beg you to understand my state of mind, just as I am trying to understand yours. America is far away and protected by the ocean, England could not be reached by Napoleon himself. You are sheltered, both of you; we are not.

Henry Adams photo

“An economic civilisation troubles itself about the universe much as a hive of honey-bees troubles about the ocean, only as a region to be avoided. The hive of Saint Thomas sheltered God and Man, Mind and Matter, The Universe and the Atom, the One and the Multiple, within the walls of a harmonious home.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres (1904)
Context: Saint Thomas is still alive and overshadows as many schools as he ever did; at all events as many as the Church maintains. He has outlived Descartes and Leibnitz and a dozen other schools of philosophy more or less serious in their day. He has mostly outived Hume, Voltaire and the militant sceptics. His method is typical and classic; his sentences, when interpreted by the Church, seem, even to an untrained mind, intelligible and consistent; his Church Intellectual remains practically unchanged, and, like the Cathedral of Beauvais, erect although the storms of six or seven centuries have prostrated, over and over again, every other social or political or juristic shelter. Compared with it, all modern systems are complex and chaotic, crowded with self-contradictions, anomalies, impracticable functions and out-worn inheritances; but beyond all their practical shortcomings is their fragmentary character. An economic civilisation troubles itself about the universe much as a hive of honey-bees troubles about the ocean, only as a region to be avoided. The hive of Saint Thomas sheltered God and Man, Mind and Matter, The Universe and the Atom, the One and the Multiple, within the walls of a harmonious home.

Carl Sagan photo

“We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

Cosmos: A Personal Voyage (1990 Update), The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean [Episode 1]
Context: We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged. We are the legacy of 15 billion years of cosmic evolution. We have a choice: We can enhance life and come to know the universe that made us, or we can squander our 15 billion-year heritage in meaningless self-destruction. What happens in the first second of the next cosmic year depends on what we do, here and now, with our intelligence and our knowledge of the cosmos.

Thomas Campbell photo

“Angel of life! thy glittering wings explore
Earth's loneliest bounds, and Ocean's wildest shore.”

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer

Part I, lines 45 - 54
Pleasures of Hope (1799)
Context: p>Auspicious Hope! in thy sweet garden grow
Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe:
Won by their sweets, in nature's languid hour,
The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower;There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing,
What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring!
What viewless forms th' Æolian organ play,
And sweep the furrow'd lines of anxious thought away!Angel of life! thy glittering wings explore
Earth's loneliest bounds, and Ocean's wildest shore.</p

Mohamed Nasheed photo

“Mohamed Nasheed: No, I am not disappointed, because we take the long view. I feel that India will in time understand what is best for India, the Maldives and the Indian Ocean. At present I am not convinced that it has understood this. But to assume that appeasement towards dictators would help bring stability -- it’s a tested hypothesis [that it does not]. How far do you appease? What do you achieve out of that? We would expect all countries in the region to be decent and supportive of democratic processes, and India too.”

Mohamed Nasheed (1967) Maldivian politician, 4th president of the Maldives

Irrespective of India’s policies, we would still argue for an India-first policy. This is not to do with India, it is to do with the Maldives, with us. I am under pressure from within my own party by those who tell me that we keep articulating the same thing, while President Yameen says he is going to be let off the hook by India and Pakistan. Our view is this – whatever India does, our views and principles are not based on our fortunes. We would want to have good relations with India and always argue for an India-first foreign policy.
Interview with the Hindu http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/interview/interview-with-nasheed-mohamed/article8310022.ece (March 4, 2016)

James A. Garfield photo

“Nothing touches my heart more quickly than a tribute of honor to a great and noble character; but as I sat in my seat and witnessed this demonstration, this assemblage seemed to me a human ocean in tempest. I have seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea, from which all heights and depths are measured.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Speech Nominating John Sherman for President (1880)
Context: Nothing touches my heart more quickly than a tribute of honor to a great and noble character; but as I sat in my seat and witnessed this demonstration, this assemblage seemed to me a human ocean in tempest. I have seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea, from which all heights and depths are measured. When the storm has passed and the hour of calm settles on the ocean, when the sunlight bathes its peaceful surface, then the astronomer and surveyor take the level from which they measure all terrestrial heights and depths.

Max Müller photo

“Still the child betrays the passions of the man, and there are hymns, though few in number, in the Veda, so full of thought and speculation that at this early period no poet in any other nation could have conceived them. I give but one specimen, the 129th hymn of the tenth book of the Rig-veda. It is a hymn which long ago attracted the attention of that eminent scholar H. T. Colebrooke, and of which, by the kind assistance of a friend, I am enabled to offer a metrical translation. In judging it we should hear in mind that it was not written by a gnostic or by a pantheistic philosopher, but by a poet who felt all these doubts and problems as his own, without any wish to convince or to startle, only uttering what had been weighing on his mind, just as later poets would sing the doubts and sorrows of their heart.
:Nor Aught nor Naught existed; yon bright sky
Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above.
What covered all? what sheltered? what concealed?
Was it the water's fathomles abyss?
There was not death — yet was there naught immortal,
There was no confine betwixt day and night;
The only One breathed breathless by itself,
Other than It there nothing since has been.
Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled
In gloom profound — an ocean without light —
The germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
Then first came love upon it, the new spring
Of mind — yea, poets in their hearts discerned,
Pondering, this bond between created things
And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth
Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven?
Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose —
Nature below, and power and will above —
Who knows the secret? who proclaimed it here,
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The gods themselves came later into being —
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
He from whom all this great creation came,
Whether his will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it — or perchance even He knows not.
:* "The Vedas"”

Max Müller (1823–1900) German-born philologist and orientalist

Chips from a German Workshop (1866)

Albert Pike photo

“The unknown is an ocean, of which conscience is the compass. Thought, meditation, prayer, are the great mysterious pointings of the needle.”

Source: Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871), Ch. I : Apprentice, The Twelve-Inch Rule and Common Gavel, p. 1
Context: Though Masonry neither usurps the place of, nor apes religion, prayer is an essential part of our ceremonies. It is the aspiration of the soul toward the Absolute and Infinite Intelligence, which is the One Supreme Deity, most feebly and misunderstandingly characterized as an "architect." Certain faculties of man are directed toward the Unknown — thought, meditation, prayer. The unknown is an ocean, of which conscience is the compass. Thought, meditation, prayer, are the great mysterious pointings of the needle. It is a spiritual magnetism that thus connects the human soul with the Deity. These majestic irradiations of the soul pierce through the shadow toward the light.
It is but a shallow scoff to say that prayer is absurd, because it is not possible for us, by means of it, to persuade God to change His plans. He produces foreknown and foreintended effects, by the instrumentality of the forces of nature, all of which are His forces. Our own are part of these. Our free agency and our will are forces. We do not absurdly cease to make efforts to attain wealth or happiness, prolong life, and continue health, because we cannot by any effort change what is predestined. If the effort also is predestined, it is not the less our effort, made of our free will.

Gerald Durrell photo

“I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers.”

Gerald Durrell (1925–1995) naturalist, zookeeper, conservationist, author and television presenter

Letter to his fiancée Lee, (31 July 1978), published in Gerald Durrell: An Authorized Biography by Douglas Botting (1999)
Context: I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forest and mountains with honey coloured light, at sea where it rises and sets like a blood orange in a multicoloured nest of cloud, slipping in and out of the vast ocean. I have seen a thousand moons: harvest moons like gold coins, winter moons as white as ice chips, new moons like baby swans’ feathers.
I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, coloured like shot silk or blue as a kingfisher or transparent as glass or black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously. … I have known silence: the cold earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well; the implacable stony silence of a deep cave; the hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotised and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun; the silence when great music ends.
I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones. … I have seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top. I have seen flying fish, skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails. I have seen Spoonbills fling home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky. I have seen Whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea, creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath. I have watched butterflies emerge and sit, trembling, while the sun irons their winds smooth. I have watched Tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass. I have been dive-bombed by an angry Raven, black and glossy as the Devil’s hoof. I have lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of Dolphins. I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things… but —
All this I did without you. This was my loss.
All this I want to do with you. This will be my gain.
All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice, your eyes, hair, lips, body, and above all for your sweet, ever surprising mind which is an enchanting quarry in which it is my privilege to delve.

Mike Scott photo

“But she is in the shadows,
the ocean and the sand
She is everywhere and noplace,
Her church not made with hands”

Mike Scott (1958) songwriter, musician

"Church Not Made With Hands"
A Pagan Place (1984)
Context: She is everywhere and noplace
Like a breath or like a wind
she moves among men
They would seek to hold her as a prize
But she is in the shadows,
the ocean and the sand
She is everywhere and noplace,
Her church not made with handsUncontained by man.

“I come through the darkness to the ocean of light,
for the light is forever and the light it is free,
"And I walk in the glory of the light," said he.”

Sydney Carter (1915–2004) British musician and poet

George Fox
Context: There's an ocean of darkness and I drown in the night
till I come through the darkness to the ocean of light,
for the light is forever and the light it is free,
"And I walk in the glory of the light," said he.

Mohamed ElBaradei photo

“What is required is a new mindset and a change of heart, to be able to see the person across the ocean as our neighbour.”

Mohamed ElBaradei (1942) Egyptian law scholar and diplomat, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Nobel …

Nobel lecture (2005)
Context: What is required is a new mindset and a change of heart, to be able to see the person across the ocean as our neighbour.
Finally, I have hope because of what I see in my children, and some of their generation.
I took my first trip abroad at the age of 19. My children were even more fortunate than I. They had their first exposure to foreign culture as infants, and they were raised in a multicultural environment. And I can say absolutely that my son and daughter are oblivious to colour and race and nationality. They see no difference between their friends Noriko, Mafupo, Justin, Saulo and Hussam; to them, they are only fellow human beings and good friends.
Globalization, through travel, media and communication, can also help us — as it has with my children and many of their peers — to see each other simply as human beings.

David Lynch photo

“The ocean of solutions is within, enliven that.... It's a world of clues, a world of mystery but the mystery can get solved, you can find a lot of answers for these things within.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

On the Alex Jones Radio show, as quoted in "David Lynch Questions 9/11 On National U.S. Radio" in Prison Planet (25 January 2007) http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/january2007/250107lynchquestions.htm

Lewis Pugh photo

“If this number of humans were killed in a year, it would be called genocide. There is a name for what is happening in our oceans today: it is ecocide.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

28 September 2014, Sunday Times http://www.pressreader.com/bookmark/NWNJXD8V5BO2/
Speaking & Features
Context: An estimated 100 million sharks are fished out of the world's oceans every year. Take a minute to mull over that figure. That's over a quarter of a million animals each day … If this number of humans were killed in a year, it would be called genocide. There is a name for what is happening in our oceans today: it is ecocide.

Oliver Wendell Holmes photo

“Knowledge—it excites prejudices to call it science—is advancing as irresistibly, as majestically, as remorselessly as the ocean moves in upon the shore.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894) Poet, essayist, physician

The Poet at the Breakfast Table (1872), p. 267 The Writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Vol. 3 (1892)

Charles Lindbergh photo

“Now, all that I feared would happen has happened. We are at war all over the world, and we are unprepared for it from either a spiritual or a material standpoint. Fortunately, in spite of all that has been said, the oceans are still difficult to cross; and we have the time to adjust and prepare…”

Charles Lindbergh (1902–1974) American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist

Journal entry (11 December 1941); later published in The Wartime Journals (1970)
Context: Now, all that I feared would happen has happened. We are at war all over the world, and we are unprepared for it from either a spiritual or a material standpoint. Fortunately, in spite of all that has been said, the oceans are still difficult to cross; and we have the time to adjust and prepare... We can, of course, be raided; but unless we let ourselves go completely to pieces internally, we cannot be invaded successfully.
But this is only one part of the picture. We are in a war which requires us to attack if we are to win it. We must attack in Asia and in Europe, in fact, all over the world. That means raising and equipping an army of many millions and building shipping, which we have not now got. And after that, if we are to carry through our present war aims, it probably means the bloodiest and most devastating war of all history.

Isadora Duncan photo

“The movement of the waves, of winds, of the earth is ever in the same lasting harmony. We do not stand on the beach and inquire of the ocean what was its movement of the past and what will be its movement of the future. We realize that the movement peculiar to its nature is eternal to its nature.”

Isadora Duncan (1877–1927) American dancer and choreographer

Source: The Art of the Dance (1928), p. 54.
Context: The movement of the waves, of winds, of the earth is ever in the same lasting harmony. We do not stand on the beach and inquire of the ocean what was its movement of the past and what will be its movement of the future. We realize that the movement peculiar to its nature is eternal to its nature. The dancer of the future will be one whose body and soul have grown so harmoniously together that the natural language of that soul will have become the movement of the body.

Constantine the Great photo

“By keeping the Divine faith, I am made a partaker of the light of truth: guided by the light of truth, I advance in the knowledge of the Divine faith. Hence it is that, as my actions themselves evince, I profess the most holy religion; and this worship I declare to be that which teaches me deeper acquaintance with the most holy God; aided by whose Divine power, beginning from the very borders of the ocean, I have aroused each nation of the world in succession to a well-grounded hope of security; so that those which, groaning in servitude to the most cruel tyrants and yielding to the pressure of their daily sufferings, had well nigh been utterly destroyed, have been restored through my agency to a far happier state.”

Constantine the Great (274–337) Roman emperor

This God I confess that I hold in unceasing honor and remembrance; this God I delight to contemplate with pure and guileless thoughts in the height of his glory. THIS God I invoke with bended knees, and recoil with horror from the blood of sacrifices from their foul and detestable odors, and from every earth-born magic fire: for the profane and impious superstitions which are defiled by these rites have cast down and consigned to perdition many, nay, whole nations of the Gentile world. For he who is Lord of all cannot endure that those blessings which, in his own loving-kindness and consideration of the wants of men he has revealed for the rise of all, should be perverted to serve the lusts of any. His only demand from man is purity of mind and an undefiled spirit; and by this standard he weighs the actions of virtue and godliness. For his pleasure is in works of moderation and gentleness: he loves the meek, and hates the turbulent spirit: delighting in faith, he chastises unbelief: by him all presumptuous power is broken down, and he avenges the insolence of the proud. While the arrogant and haughty are utterly overthrown, he requires the humble and forgiving with deserved rewards: even so does he highly honor and strengthen with his special help a kingdom justly governed, and maintains a prudent king in the tranquility of peace. I CANNOT, then, my brother believe that I err in acknowledging this one God, the author and parent of all things: whom many of my predecessors in power, led astray by the madness of error, have ventured to deny... For I myself have witnessed the end of those who lately harassed the worshipers of God by their impious edict. And for this abundant thanksgivings are due to God that through his excellent Providence all men who observe his holy laws are gladdened by the renewed enjoyment of peace. Hence I am fully persuaded that everything is in the best and safest posture, since God is vouchsafing, through the influence of their pure and faithful religious service, and their unity of judgment respecting his Divine character, to gather all men to himself
Letter of Constantine to Sapor, King of the Persians (333)
Constantine the Great : Letters

Hazrat Inayat Khan photo

“When a person opposes or hinders the expression of a great ideal, and is unwilling to believe that he will meet his fellow men as soon as he has penetrated deeply enough into every soul, he is preventing himself from realizing the unlimited. All beliefs are simply degrees of clearness of vision. All are part of one ocean of truth. The more this is realized the easier is it to see the true relationship between all beliefs, and the wider does the vision of the one great ocean become.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882–1927) Indian Sufi

The Spiritual Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan
Context: What is a Sufi? Strictly speaking, every seeker after the ultimate truth is really a Sufi, whether he calls himself that or not. But as he seeks truth according to his own particular point of view, he often finds it difficult to believe that others, from their different points of view, are yet seeking the same truth, and always with success, though to a varying degree. That is in fact the point of view of the Sufi and it differs from others only in its constant endeavor to comprehend all others as within itself. It seeks to realize that every person, following his own particular line in life, nevertheless fits into the scheme of the whole and finally attains not only his own goal, but the one final goal of all.
Hence every person can be called a Sufi either as long as he is seeking to understand life, or as soon as he is willing to believe that every other human being will also find and touch the same ideal. When a person opposes or hinders the expression of a great ideal, and is unwilling to believe that he will meet his fellow men as soon as he has penetrated deeply enough into every soul, he is preventing himself from realizing the unlimited. All beliefs are simply degrees of clearness of vision. All are part of one ocean of truth. The more this is realized the easier is it to see the true relationship between all beliefs, and the wider does the vision of the one great ocean become.

Leo Tolstoy photo

“Whereas at present, every man, even, if free, asks himself, "What can I do alone against all this ocean of evil and deceit which overwhelms us? Why should I express my opinion? Why indeed possess one?”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: Patriotism and Christianity http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patriotism_and_Christianity (1896), Ch. 17
Context: One free man will say with truth what he thinks and feels amongst thousands of men who by their acts and words attest exactly the opposite. It would seem that he who sincerely expressed his thought must remain alone, whereas it generally happens that every one else, or the majority at least, have been thinking and feeling the same things but without expressing them.
And that which yesterday was the novel opinion of one man, to-day becomes the general opinion of the majority.
And as soon as this opinion is established, immediately by imperceptible degrees, but beyond power of frustration, the conduct of mankind begins to alter.
Whereas at present, every man, even, if free, asks himself, "What can I do alone against all this ocean of evil and deceit which overwhelms us? Why should I express my opinion? Why indeed possess one? It is better not to reflect on these misty and involved questions. Perhaps these contradictions are an inevitable condition of our existence. And why should I struggle alone with all the evil in the world? Is it not better to go with the stream which carries me along? If anything can be done, it must be done not alone but in company with others."
And leaving the most powerful of weapons — thought and its expression — which move the world, each man employs the weapon of social activity, not noticing that every social activity is based on the very foundations against which he is bound to fight, and that upon entering the social activity which exists in our world every man is obliged, if only in part, to deviate from the truth and to make concessions which destroy the force of the powerful weapon which should assist him in the struggle. It is as if a man, who was given a blade so marvelously keen that it would sever anything, should use its edge for driving in nails.
We all complain of the senseless order of life, which is at variance with our being, and yet we refuse to use the unique and powerful weapon within our hands — the consciousness of truth and its expression; but on the contrary, under the pretext of struggling with evil, we destroy the weapon, and sacrifice it to the exigencies of an imaginary conflict'.

Maya Angelou photo

“I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.”

"Still I Rise"
And Still I Rise (1978)
Context: Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Marcel Pagnol photo
David Attenborough photo
Stafford Cripps photo
John Henry Poynting photo
Ernest King photo

“In connection with the matter of command in the field, there is perhaps a popular misconception that the Army and the Navy were intermingled in a standard form of joint operational organization in every theater throughout the world. Actually, the situation was never the same in any two areas. For example, after General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower had completed his landing in Normandy, his operation became purely a land campaign. The Navy was responsible for maintaining the line of communications across the ocean and for certain supply operations in the ports of Europe, and small naval groups became part of the land army for certain special purposes, such as the boat groups which helped in the crossing of the Rhine. But the strategy and tactics of the great battles leading up to the surrender of Germany were primarily army affairs and no naval officer had anything directly to do with the command of this land campaign. A different situation existed in the Pacific, where, in the process of capturing small atolls, the fighting was almost entirely within range of naval gunfire; that is to say, the whole operation of capturing an atoll was amphibious in nature, with artillery and air-support primarily naval. This situation called for a mixed Army-Navy organization which was entrusted to the command of Fleet Admiral Nimitz. A still different situation existed in the early days of the war during the Solomon Islands campaign where Army and Navy became, of necessity, so thoroughly intermingled that they were, to all practical purposes, a single service directed by Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr. Under General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Army, Army Aviation, and the naval components of his command were separate entities tied together only at the top in the person of General MacArthur himself. In the Mediterranean the scheme of command differed somewhat from all the others.”

Ernest King (1878–1956) United States Navy admiral, Chief of Naval Operations

Third Report, p. 172
U.S. Navy at War, 1941-1945: Official Reports to the Secretary of the Navy (1946)

Ernest King photo
Alex Grey photo
Ian Urbina photo

“I am constantly recharged by the different artists I work with, by the new challenges we face, and by listening to my inner voice. My trip to the ocean every year gives me great peace, and now that I am a grandfather for the first time, I am thrilled and inspired every day that I see my granddaughter because I have great hope for the future generation.”

Hugo Medrano director, playwright, and actor

On what inspires him in “An Interview with GALA Hispanic Theatre’s Hugo Medrano” https://mdtheatreguide.com/2011/10/an-interview-with-gala-hispanic-theatres-hugo-medrano/ in MD Theatre Guide (2011 Oct 8)

Eric Rücker Eddison photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
Vladimir Lenin photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Nasser Khalili photo
Jordan Peterson photo
William Quan Judge photo
Benjamin Creme photo
Sheila Jackson Lee photo
Bill McKibben photo
Abu Hamid al-Ghazali photo

“From my early youth, since I attained the age of puberty before I was twenty, until the present time when I am over fifty, I have ever recklessly launched out into the midst of these ocean depths, I have ever bravely embarked on this open sea, throwing aside all craven caution; I have poked into every dark recess, I have made an assault on every problem, I have plunged into every abyss, I have scrutinized the creed of every sect, I have tried to lay bare the inmost doctrines of every community. All this have I done that I might 68 distinguish between true and false, between sound tradition and heretical innovation.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

Whenever I meet one of the Batiniyah, I like to study his creed; whenever I meet one of the Zahiriyah, I want to know the essentials of his belief. If it is a philosopher, I try to become acquainted with the essence of his philosophy; if a scholastic theologian I busy myself in examining his theological reasoning; if a Sufi, I yearn to fathom the secret of his mysticism; if an ascetic (muta'ahhid) , I investigate the basis of his ascetic practices; if one ofthe Zanadiqah or Mu'attilah, I look beneath the surface to discover the reasons for his bold adoption of such a creed.
The Deliverance from Error https://www.amazon.com/Al-Ghazalis-Path-Sufism-Deliverance-al-Munqidh/dp/1887752307, p: 20-21

Marilyn Ferguson photo

“Another discovery: uncertainty. Not just the uncertainty of the moment, which may pass, but oceanic uncertainty, mystery that washes across our beaches forever.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Four, People Changing

David Lloyd George photo
Adolf Eichmann photo
Sergey Lavrov photo
Ernst, Baron von Feuchtersleben photo
Jeff Buckley photo

“Jeff Buckley was a pure drop in an ocean of noise.”

Jeff Buckley (1966–1997) American singer, guitarist and songwriter

Bono of U2 from Mojo Magazine, August 1997

William McKinley photo

“The ocean is not wide enough to hold all the sympathy that is streaming from the Old World to the New.”

William McKinley (1843–1901) American politician, 25th president of the United States (in office from 1897 to 1901)

Austrian response to McKinley's death by Vienna newspaper Neues Wiener Tageblatt. The Authentic Life of President McKinley, page 397.

Michael Chabon photo
Walker Percy photo
Teal Swan photo
Will Tuttle photo
William Wordsworth photo
John Prine photo

“Love and devotion, deep as any ocean
don't play by anybody's rules
With your carousel of horses
and your unforeseen forces,
you're running with the caravan of fools
Caravan of fools, caravan of fools
You're running with the caravan of fools”

John Prine (1946–2020) American country singer/songwriter

Caravan of Fools (co-written with Dan Auerbach and Pat McLaughlin)
Song lyrics, The Tree of Forgiveness (2018)

“The Internet is like a knowledge of the ocean, you can grab as much as you can.”

Akshay Makadiya (1993) an Entrepreneur and Founder of RankLane

In a Radio Interview https://soundcloud.com/akshay-makadiya/akshay-makadiya-radio-interview-with-rj-sheetal with RJ Sheetal at Radio Mirchi. June 14, 2014

V. T. Rajshekar photo

“The Dalits were the original inhabitants of India and resemble the African in physical features. It is said that India and Africa were one land-mass until separated by the ocean. So both the Africans and the Indian Untouchables had common ancestors.”

V. T. Rajshekar (1932) Indian conspiracy theorist

V.T. Rajshekar: Dalit - the Black Untouchables of India, Clarity Press, Atlanta 1987, p.43. , quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate https://web.archive.org/web/20100412074243/http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ait/ New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

John Milton photo

“Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

John Milton (1608–1674) English epic poet

On His Blindness (1652)

Compare "Patience is also a form of action." Attributed to Auguste Rodin in: Leonard William Doob (1990). Hesitation: Impulsivity and Reflection. p. 124

Horace photo

“Tommorrow we will be back on the vast ocean.”

Horace (-65–-8 BC) Roman lyric poet

The Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations: The Illiterati's Guide to Latin Maxims, Mottoes, Proverbs and Sayings

Ernestine Rose photo
Tenzin Gyatso photo
Harry Gordon Selfridge photo
Enoch Powell photo
David Gruber photo
Cynthia Barnett photo

“But how is it you know all this about how large the ocean is? I thought you girls were limited to pretty chatter and the economics of housekeeping. I didn’t know you learned geography.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

“We don’t,” she said, somewhat shamefaced. “But we learned to read, and once one can read, one can learn anything.”
Source: Singer from the Sea (1999), Chapter 17, “Merdune Lagoon” (p. 272)

Ron English photo

“A stream of consciousness leads to an ocean of revelations.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

Ron English photo

“Every river is looking for an ocean.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

Felix Adler photo
Georg Forster photo

“When we saw the most beautiful fishes of the sea, the dolphin and bonito, in pursuit of the flying fish, and when these forsook their native element to seek for shelter in air, the application to human nature was obvious. What empire is not like a tumultuous ocean, where the great in all the magnificence and pomp of power, continually persecute and contrive the destruction of the defenceless?”

Sometimes we saw this picture continued still farther, when the poor fugitives met with another set of enemies in the air, and became the prey of birds, by endeavouring to escape the jaws of fishes.
Book I, ch. II, The Passage from Madeira to the Cape Verd Islands, and from thence to the Cape of Good Hope.
A Voyage Round the World (1777)

Jean-Michel Cousteau photo
Fabien Cousteau photo
Céline Cousteau photo

“Whenever I look at any environmental story, whether it’s oceans, jungles, Antarctica, or the Amazon, I look at the human side to translate it in a relevant way for human beings. It makes it more relevant and compelling to people who are watching, listening, reading.”

Céline Cousteau (1972) French-American explorer, filmmaker, and diver

Amazon ‘Tribes on the Edge’: Q&A with documentary filmmaker Céline Cousteau https://www.thenewleam.com/2021/04/amazon-tribes-on-the-edge-qa-with-documentary-filmmaker-celine-cousteau/ (April 22, 2021)

John Mulaney photo
Viktor Pinchuk photo
Bowinn Ma photo

“My English name is Bowinn Ma, but in Chinese, it’s Ma Bo Wen. Ma literally translates as “horse,” which is the family name, and Bo Wen literally translates to “plentiful script.” But what it means can be roughly translated as “ocean of knowledge” or “broad scholar.””

Bowinn Ma (1985) Canadian politician

It means someone who has a broad understanding of many things and someone who has the wisdom to use this knowledge in a good way. It represents what my parents and grandparents had hoped I would become as an adult. In English, my name is just a name, a series of sounds used to identify me. But in my traditional language, those two simple syllables are a culmination of all of the hopes and dreams that my family have had of me since my birth — aspirations that could never truly be translated properly across cultures in as succinct a way.
British Columbia Legislative Hansard, March 12, 2018: INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES
Meaning of Name

Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki photo

“The seekers on the path of God are a community who are overwhelmed in the ocean of love from head to nail of the foot.”

Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki (1173–1235) Indian Sufi

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam (2004), p. 264

Mati Diop photo

“I started to watch the ocean. I was not looking at it like I used to; it became like a grave.”

Mati Diop (1982) French actress and film director

Source: On travelling to Senegal in 2008 to make a film in “Atlantics director Mati Diop: ‘As a mixed-race girl, there’s a visible and invisible side of you'” https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/nov/09/atlantics-director-mati-diop-as-a-mixed-race-girl-theres-always-a-visible-and-invisible-side-of-you in The Guardian (2019 Nov 9)

Soane Patita Paini Mafi photo

“When we come together, we try to search for a collective effort in spite of our differences. We are split and scattered by the ocean, but we must find ways to tackle our issues.”

Soane Patita Paini Mafi (1961) Tongan Roman Catholic cardinal

Source: Caritas Oceania: united by faith and the ocean https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2021-07/caritas-oceania-annual-forum-interview-cardinal-mafi-tonga.html (31 July 2021)

Norman Lindsay photo

“When (volcanic) ash falls into the ocean, it brings with it nutrients. For example, It can bring iron, which is usually quite low in the ocean. It can suddenly create a bloom of plankton, which then go through the food chain, creating a population boom later on the fish and other lives too.”

Shane J. Cronin researcher, ORCID id # 0000-0001-7499-603X

Source: Shane J. Cronin (2022) cited in: " Interview: Tonga volcanic eruption not likely to cause global climate change, says New Zealand volcanologist http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/asiapacific/20220118/dc046e9e38e343a381668086f1b71d0e/c.html" in Xinhua Net, 18 January 2022.

“We are trying to help in every way we can, and above all in order to prevent people from choosing the solution of leaving the country forever, and in many cases risking their lives trying to cross the ocean.”

Antoine Chbeir (1961) Lebanese cleric, Maronite bishop of Latakia

Source: Bishop Chbeir – “The end of the war in Syria is in the hands of the international community” https://acninternational.org/bishop-chbeir-the-end-of-the-war-in-syria-is-in-the-hands-of-the-international-community/ (23 March 2018)

Swami Vivekananda photo

“To succeed, you must have tremendous perseverance, tremendous will. "I will drink the ocean", says the persevering soul; "at my will mountains will crumble up." Have that sort of energy, that sort of will; work hard, and you will reach the goal.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Source: Vedânta philosophy : Lectures by the Swâmi Vivekânanda on Râja Yoga (1899), Ch. VI : Pratyâhâra and Dhâraṇâm

Euripidés photo

“On behalf of all those dead
who learned their hatred of women long ago,
for those who hate them now, for those unborn
who shall live to hate them yet, I now declare
my firm conviction: neither earth nor ocean
produces a creature as savage and monstrous
as woman.”

Hecuba (424 BC), lines 1177-1182. [Euripides, William Arrowsmith (translated by), Grene, David, Lattimore, Richmond, Euripides III: Four Tragedies, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, USA, 0226307824, paperback]
Variant ( tr. Jay Kardan and Laura-Gray Street (2010) http://didaskalia.net/issues/8/32/):
Let me tell you, if anyone in the past has spoken
ill of women, or speaks so now or will speak so
in the future, I’ll sum it up for him: Neither sea
nor land has ever produced a more monstrous
creature than woman.

John Prine photo