Earth is made up of 71 percent water, which can be a bit mind-blowing to consider. Since day-to-day life revolves around the land for the majority of the world, the recognition of the ocean’s prominence and its unknowns can be frightening (also known as thalassophobia). The ocean is also stunningly beautiful and can evoke the feeling of limitless possibilities in our own lives. The deep waters of the ocean can often bring about similarities to the fears we have of our own futures, as well as provide a sense of renewal to be immersed in the salt air, sunshine, and the freedom of open seas. Whether you relate to the ebb and flow of the ocean’s waves, feel a connection to the water’s surface, or find it fascinating to consider everything we don’t actually know about this natural environment, these 75 quotes about the ocean will leave you in a setting of contemplation, awe, and wonder!
75 Ocean Quotes
- “We have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean.” — John F. Kennedy
- “I have been feeling very clearheaded lately and what I want to write about today is the sea. It contains so many colors. Silver at dawn, green at noon, dark blue in the evening. Sometimes it looks almost red. Or it will turn the color of old coins. Right now the shadows of clouds are dragging across it, and patches of sunlight are touching down everywhere. White strings of gulls drag over it like beads. It is my favorite thing, I think, that I have ever seen. Sometimes I catch myself staring at it and forget my duties. It seems big enough to contain everything anyone could ever feel.” — Anthony Doerr
- “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
- “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
- “She loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.” — Holly Black
- “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
- “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
- “The sea does not like to be restrained.” — Rick Riordan
- “In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.” — Kahlil Gibran
- “Would you learn the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers, comprehend its mystery!” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- “Surfing is very special and unique. It’s really hard to explain unless you’ve tried it. It’s being out in the ocean in the sun, the water on your skin, and the adrenaline rush when you catch a wave. You have to be creative, so it’s like an art form in a way.” — Bethany Hamilton
- “Limitless and immortal, the waters are the beginning and end of all things on earth.” — Heinrich Zimmer
- “The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul.” — Robert Wylan
- “A sailor is an artist whose medium is the wind.” — Webb Chiles
- “Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.” — Sarah Kay
- “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 its 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.” — Cecilia Ahern
- “How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is clearly Ocean.” — Arthur C. Clarke
- “With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you’re connected to the sea. No matter where on Earth you live.” — Sylvie Earle
- “But where, after all, would be the poetry of the sea were there no wild waves?” — Joshua Slocum
- “The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” — Jacques Cousteau
- “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
- “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
- “A full moon sprinkled the black ocean with diamonds, and she could imagine fairies dancing in the silver foam that laced the huge, dark waves.” — Patricia Hagan
- “The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient… Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea.” — Anne Morrow Lindbergh
- “As the sea is beautiful not only in calm but also in a storm, so is happiness found not only in peace but also in strife.”— Ivan Panin
- “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
- “In still moments by the sea life seems large-drawn and simple. It is there we can see into ourselves.” — Rolf Edberg
- “Ideals are like the stars: we never reach them, but like the mariners of the sea, we chart our course by them.” — Carl Schurz
- “I was happy anywhere I could see the ocean.” — Ai Yazawa
- “When anxious, uneasy and bad thoughts come, I go to the sea, and the sea drowns them out with its great wide sounds, cleanses me with its noise, and imposes a rhythm upon everything in me that is bewildered and confused.” — Rainer Maria Rilke
- “Your heart is like the ocean, mysterious and dark.” — Bob Dylan
- “I wanted freedom, open air and adventure. I found it on the sea.” — Alain Gerbeault
- “The ocean has always been a salve to my soul…the best thing for a cut or abrasion was to go swimming in saltwater. Later down the road of life, I made the discovery that salt water was also good for the mental abrasions one inevitably acquires on land.” — Jimmy Buffet
- “I am the shore and the ocean, awaiting myself on both sides.” — Dejan Stojanovic
- “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
- “The sea has boundless patience.” — Craig Robertson
- “Dance with the waves, move with the sea, let the rhythm of the water set your soul free.” — Christy Ann Martine
- “That the sea is one of the most beautiful and magnificent sights in Nature, all admit.” — John Joly
- “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
- “There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.” — Kahlil Gibran
- “A pool just isn’t the same as the ocean. It has no energy. No life.” — Linda Gerber
- “The sea possesses a power over one’s moods that has the effect of a will. The sea can hypnotize. Nature, in general, can do so.” — Henrik Ibsen
- “I will find comfort in the rhythm of the sea.” — Charlotte Eriksson
- “[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
- “Take me to the ocean. Let me sail the open sea. To breathe the warm and salty air and dream of things to be.” — Erica Billups
- “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
- “To me, the sea is like a person — like a child that I’ve known a long time. It sounds crazy, I know, but when I swim in the sea I talk to it. I never feel alone when I’m out there.” — Gertrude Ederle
- “At night, when the sky is full of stars and the sea is still you get the wonderful sensation that you are floating in space.” — Natalie Wood
- “To reach a port we must set sail. Sail, not tie at anchor. Sail, not drift.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
- “For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), it’s always our self we find in the sea.” — E.E. Cummings
- “My soul is full of longing for the secrets of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- “Everyone is part of a connected cosmic system. Part earth and sea, wind and fire, with some salt and dust swimming in them. We have a universe within ourselves that mimics the universe outside. None of us are just black or white, or never wrong and always right. No one. No one exists without polarities. Everybody has good and bad forces working with them, against them, and within them.” — Suzy Kassem
- “Sand lines my soul which is filled with the breath of the ocean.” — A.D. Posey
- “To me, the sea is a continual miracle; The fishes that swim-the rocks-the motion of the waves-the ships, with men in them, What stranger miracles are there?” — Walt Whitman
- “The sea is an underwater museum still awaiting its visitors.” — Phillip Diole
- “What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams.” — Werner Herzog
- “The sea! the sea! the open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever free!” — Bryan W. Procter
- “See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me. And no one knows how far it goes.” — Moana, “How Far I’ll Go”
- “Pure water is the world’s first and foremost medicine.” — Slovakian Proverb
- “You will love the ocean. It makes you feel so… I don’t know. Small, but not in a bad way. Small because you realize you’re part of something bigger.” — Lauren Myracle
- “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
- “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 Cousteau
- “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
- “The sea is a desert of waves, A wilderness of water.” — Langston Hughes
- “[T]hen all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.” — Herman Melville
- “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” — Mahatma Gandhi
- “If you want to hear the distant voice of the ocean put your ear to the distant lips of a seashell.” — Curtis Tyrone Jones
- “I wonder if the ocean smells different on the other side of the world.” — J.A. Redmerski
- “The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too…” — Vincent van Gogh
- “‘Waves are the voices of tides. Tides are life,’ murmured Niko. ‘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
- “Hark, now hear the sailors cry, smell the sea, and feel the sky, let your soul and spirit fly, into the mystic.” — Van Morrison
- “I spent uncounted hours sitting at the bow looking at the water and the sky, studying each wave, different from the last, seeing how it caught the light, the air, the wind; watching patterns, the sweep of it all, and letting it take me. The sea.” — Gary Paulsen
- “Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills.” — Ambrose Bierce
- “Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought of which the sea would not be part.” — Hermann Broch
- “Why do we love the sea? It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.” — Robert Henri Check out:- 101 nature quotes- 30 Earth Day quotes- 100 butterfly quotes- 100 quotes about peace
