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.
For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!
Mathematics are well and good but Nature keeps dragging us around by the nose.
Nature has an economy, an elegance, a style, that if we could but emulate it we could rise out of the rubble we are making out of the planet
For better or worse, zoos are how most people come to know big or exotic animals. Few will ever see wild penguins sledding downhill to sea on their bellies, giant pandas holding bamboo lollipops in China or tree porcupines in the Canadian Rockies, balled up like giant pine cones.
If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go.... This is the story of our past and it will be the story of our future.
We owe it to each other - and to our children and grandchildren - to leave our planet in a better state than when we found it.
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