The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
Interpretation
The ocean captivates and mesmerizes those who experience its beauty, creating a lasting fascination.
This quote by Jacques Yves Cousteau reflects on the profound and enchanting effect that the sea has on people. It suggests that once someone is exposed to the wonders of the ocean, they are forever enchanted by its beauty and mystery, indicating a deep emotional and spiritual connection that transcends time.
In practice
Speaking at a marine conservation event, I quoted Cousteau to emphasize the need to protect our oceans.
We must alert and organise the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.
No aquarium, no tank in a marine land, however spacious it may be, can begin to duplicate the conditions of the sea. And no dolphin who inhabits one of those aquariums or one of those marine lands can be considered normal.
It's terrible to have to say this. World population must be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn't even say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is lamentable.
The impossible missions are the only ones which succeed.
The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.
The best way to observe a fish is to become a fish.
I stared up at the ebbing quarter moon and the stars scattered like a handful of salt across the faraway sky.
Never while anything is left of me shall this... camp be forgotten. It has fairly grown into me, not merely as memory pictures, but as part and parcel of mind and body alike.
Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again, it is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence. How happens it that the associations it awakens are always pleasing, never saddening, reminiscences of our sanest hours. The voice of nature is always encouraging.
For here the religion that languishes in crowded cities or steals shame-faced to hide itself in dim churches, flourishes greatly, filling the soul with a solemn joy. Face to face with Nature on the vast hills at eventide, who does not feel himself near to the Unseen?
Most species do their own evolving, making it up as they go along, which is the way Nature intended. And this is all very natural and organic and in tune with mysterious cycles of the cosmos, which believes that there's nothing like millions of years of really frustrating trial and error to give a species moral fiber and, in some cases, backbone.
As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm,- Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head.
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