.

.

The ocean is emotion incarnate

• 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
• The beach,  Nature,  Rivers,  Lakes

.

The ocean stirs the heart and renews the spirit

• The ocean stirs the heart, inspires the imagination and brings eternal joy to the soul. Wyland
• I never really understood the word ‘loneliness’. As far as I was concerned, I was in an orgy with the sky and the ocean, and with nature. Björk
• 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
• The sea always filled her with longing, though for what she was never sure. Cornelia Funke
• My soul is full of longing for the secret of the sea, and the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• 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
• Ever since I was a child I’ve felt connected to water: lakes, rivers, streams––I love to jump in and swim around. But it’s the ocean where I go for rejuvenation, revelation, and solace. Susan Rockefeller
• The heart,  The soul

.

The ocean makes us feel alive

• I, a city dweller, have a summer place on a cedar-crested bluff overlooking a lovely bay down by the sea. The salt breezes off the mighty ocean sweep cares away; the soft sunlight falling on the grass teaches me the quiet repose of earth; the unhurried sounds of the natural world, so different in quality from strident city noises, quiet me as a mother soothes her troubled child; and at night when the stars come out, blossoming one by one in the infinite meadows of heaven, and a hush falls over land and sea, I can hear the friendly voice of Mother Nature, which is the voice of God, saying:  “My child, this is life.  Take time to live it.”  Norman Vincent Peale
• The dance of the palm trees, the oceans calling, the first rays of sun and heaven is here. Mike Dolan
• Long before we saw the sea, its spray was on our lips, and showered salt rain upon us. Charles Dickens
• She loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air. Holly Black
• Hark, now hear the sailors cry, smell the sea, and feel the sky, let your soul and spirit fly, into the mystic… Van Morrison
• Being fully alive

.

Walking barefoot by the ocean is a joy

• Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war. Loren Eiseley
• Take your shoes off, purred the ocean waves. SunWolf
• I find myself at the extremity of a long beach. How gladly does the spirit leap forth, and suddenly enlarge its sense of being to the full extent of the broad, blue, sunny deep!  A greeting and a homage to the Sea!  I descend over its margin and dip my hand into the wave that meets me, and bathe my brow.  That far-resounding roar is the Ocean’s voice of welcome.  His salt breath brings a blessing along with it.  Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Joy

.

The ocean is a healing and calming force

• The cure for anything is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea. Isak Dinesen
• 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
• Healing,  Calmness

.

The ocean is sacred and timeless

• Ocean is more ancient than the mountains and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time. P. Lovecraft
• I felt the full breadth and depth of the ocean around the sphere of the Earth, back billions of years to the beginning of life, across all the passing lives and deaths, the endless waves of swimming joy and quiet losses of exquisite creatures with fins and fronds, tentacles and wings, colourful and transparent, tiny and huge, coming and going. There is nothing the ocean has not seen. Sally Andrew

.

The spaciousness of the ocean provides profound spiritual glimpses

• Those who are responsive to Nature, and more especially to the beautiful colours released at the sun’s rise and fall, to the silences of woods and forests, or to the ocean’s vast spaciousness, may use such contacts for attempts to get spiritual glimpses. Paul Brunton

.

The ocean epitomises freedom

• The ocean was the best place, of course. That was what she loved most. It was a feeling of freedom like no other, and yet a feeling of communion with all the other places and creatures the water touched. Ann Brashares
• I want to run the beach’s length, because it never ends. Deborah Ager
• The sea! the sea! the open sea!, The blue, the fresh, the ever free! Bryan W. Procter
• Freedom

.

The ocean is the home of water

• Don’t you realize that the sea is the home of water? All water is off on a journey unless it’s in the sea, and it’s homesick, and bound to make its way home someday. Zora Neale Hurston
• The nature of light is to shine. The way of the river is to return home to its sea. The essence of human is being. Chad Christopher Cobb
• Follow the river and you will find the sea. French Proverb
• Even the upper end of the river believes in the ocean. William Stafford

.

The ocean has a strong pull for we came from it …

• And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came. John F. Kennedy

.

… as powerful as the pull of its tides

• There is no drop of water in the ocean, not even in the deepest parts of the abyss, that does not know and respond to the mysterious forces that create the tide. Rachel Carson
• 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
• Eternity begins and ends with the ocean’s tides.

.

The ocean helps us to get back to ourselves

• For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), It’s always our self we find in the sea. e.e. Cummings
• I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me. Anna Quindlen
• The waves of the sea help me get back to me. Jill Davis
• The sea lives in every one of us. Wyland

.

The voice of the ocean speaks to the soul …

• The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace. Kate Chopin
• The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach. Henry Beston
• The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat. It is a colossal scavenger slang and has no respect. Carl Sandburg
• The sea pronounces something, over and over, in a hoarse whisper; I cannot quite make it out. Annie Dillard
• How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.  Nikos Kazantzakis
• Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent. H. P. Lovecraft

.

… for it is the true music of nature

• There is however, a true music of nature; the song of the birds, the whisper of leaves, the ripple of waters upon a sandy shore, the wail of wind or sea. Lubbock
• The ocean is a mighty harmonist. William Wordsworth
• Nature

.

.

Take time to listen to the sound of the ocean

• I will take time each day to commune with nature and to silently witness the intelligence within every living thing. I will sit silently and watch a sunset, or listen to the sound of the ocean or a stream, or simply smell the scent of a flower. Deepak Chopra

.

Take time to look out over the ocean …

• There is indeed, perhaps, no better way to hold communion with the sea than sitting in the sun on the veranda of a fishermen’s cafe. Joseph W. Beach
• 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

.

… to appreciate its immense beauty

• 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
• A person should go out on the water on a fine day to a small distance from a beautiful coast, if he would see Nature really smile. Never does she look so delightful, as when the sun is brightly reflected by the water, while the waves are gently rippling, and the prospect receives life and animation from the glancing transit of an occasional row-boat, and the quieter motion of a few small vessels.  But the land must be well in sight; not only for its own sake, but because the immensity and awfulness of a mere sea-view would ill accord with the other parts of the glittering and joyous scene. Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare
• Look at that sea, girls–all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
• Every time I stand before a beautiful beach, its waves seem to whisper to me: If you choose the simple things and find joy in nature’s simple treasures, life and living need not be so hard. Psyche Roxas-Mendoza
• That the sea is one of the most beautiful and magnificent sights in Nature, all admit. John Joly
• Beauty

.

… to appreciate the wonder and miracle of it

• 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, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. Jacques Cousteau
• Wonder

.

Reflect by the ocean for it frees the mind

• What are the best times to reflect on the course of your life? Whenever you are near water, such as the ocean, a quiet pond, or a small stream. Bodies of water, particularly if they are moving, help to stimulate your creative thought process. Jeff Davidson
• Doesn’t it seem to you,” asked Madame Bovary, “that the mind moves more freely in the presence of that boundless expanse, that the sight of it elevates the soul and gives rise to thoughts of the infinite and the ideal? Gustave Flaubert
• So that the monotonous fall of the waves on the beach, which for the most part beat a measured and soothing tattoo to her thoughts seemed consolingly to repeat over and over again… Virginia Woolf
• 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
• Reflection

.

Explore below the surface of the ocean

• The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface. The desert is a place of bones, where the innards are turned out, to desiccate into dust. The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being. Inside out and outside in. These are worlds of things that implode or explode, and the only catalyst that determines the direction of eco-movement is the balance of water. Both worlds are deceptive, dangerous. Both, seething with hidden life.  The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage.  Dare to breach the surface and sink.  Vera Nazarian
• 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

.

.

The ocean is by not always a friend …

• Most of us, I suppose, are a little nervous of the sea. No matter what its smiles may be, we doubt its friendship.  M. Tomlinson
• The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.   Joseph Conrad

.

… for the ocean can be as ferocious as it can be peaceful and playful

• . . . these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang. Herman Melville
• 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 as 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. Cecelia Ahern

.

The ocean is the last great, untamed wilderness

• The oceans are the planet’s last great living wilderness, man’s only remaining frontier on earth, and perhaps his last chance to produce himself a rational species. John Cullney
• The sea hath no king but God alone. Dante Gabriel Rossetti
• The sea does not like to be restrained. Rick Riordan
• The world’s finest wilderness lies beneath the waves,  Wyland

.

Putting out to sea requires courage

• The sea hates a coward. Eugene O’Neill
• He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea. George Herbert
• He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea. Thomas Fuller

.

.

The ocean teems with life

• There is the life of the plankton in almost endless variety; there are the many kinds of fish, both surface and bottom living; there are the hosts of different invertebrate creatures on the sea-floor; and there are those almost grotesque forms of pelagic life in the oceans depths. Then there are the squids and cuttlefish, and the porpoises, dolphins and great whales. Sir Alister Hardy

.

It’s sad how we’ve abused the ocean

• …our culture’s frenzied and mindless assault on the last shreds of nature may not be the wisest course… We’re melting the ice caps, ripping up the rainforest, and vacuuming the oceans of everything that wriggles. George Meyer
• The tradition of freedom of the high seas has its roots in an era when there were too few people to seriously violate the oceans — but in hindsight that era ended some 150 years ago. James Carlton
• “Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans. Jacques Yves Cousteau
• We are blessed with a magnificent and miraculous world ocean on this planet. But we are also stressing it in ways that we are not even close to bringing under control. Carl Safina

.

We need to protect the ocean

• Can we afford clean water? Can we afford rivers and lakes and streams and oceans which continue to make possible life on this planet? Can we afford life itself? Those questions were never asked as we destroyed the waters of our nation, and they deserve no answers as we finally move to restore and renew them. These questions answer themselves. Senator Ed Muskie of Maine
• We know that when we protect our oceans we’re protecting our future. Bill Clinton
• It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist: the threat is rather to life itself. Rachel Carson
• The oceans deserve our respect and care, but you have to know something before you can care about it. Sylvia Earle
• If we don’t manage this resource, we will be left with a diet of jellyfish and plankton stew. Daniel Pauly
• People ask: Why should I care about the ocean? Because the ocean is the cornerstone of earth’s life support system, it shapes climate and weather. It holds most of life on earth. 97% of earth’s water is there. It’s the blue heart of the planet- we should take care of our heart. It’s what makes life possible for us. We still have a really good chance to make things better than they are. They won’t get better unless we take the action and inspire others to do the same thing. No one is without power. Everybody has the capacity to do something. Sylvia Earle
• Care for the environment

.

.

Oceans teach us that little drops of water greatly add up

• A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth. The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water. Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts. And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them are far- reaching. Sivananda
• Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean, and the pleasant land. So the little minutes, humble though they be, make the mighty ages of eternity. Julia Carney
• My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
• Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean. Ryunosuke Satoro
• Many drops make a bucket, many buckets make a pond, many ponds make a lake, and many lakes make an ocean. Percy Ross

.

The ocean teaches us of immensity and perspective

• The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson. The mountain teaches stability and grandeur; the ocean immensity and change. Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes, – every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. Even the bee and ant have brought their little lessons of industry and economy. Orison Swett Marden
• 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
• I’m always happy when I’m surrounded by water, I think I’m a Mermaid or I was a mermaid. 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
• Limitless and immortal, the waters are the beginning and end of all things on earth. Heinrich Zimmer
• Perspective

.

The ocean teaches us of change and impermanence

• We are like children building a sand castle. We embellish it with beautiful shells, bits of driftwood, and pieces of colored glass. The castle is ours, off limits to others. We’re willing to attack if others threaten to hurt it. Yet despite all our attachment, we know that the tide will inevitably come in and sweep the sand castle away. The trick is to enjoy it fully but without clinging, and when the time comes, let it dissolve back into the sea. Pema Chodron
• Change,  Impermanence

.

.

The ocean is a very powerful metaphor for all kinds of things …

• What are the days but islands, so many little islands, and sleep the sea of silence, that flows about them all? Caroline Spencer
• The virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are in the sea. La Rochefoucauld
• A life without limits is taking a cup of red dye and pouring it into the ocean, and watching the color dilute into nothingness. Limited focus is putting that same cup of dye into a gallon of water. Leo Babauta
• An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather. Washington Irving
• Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all Virtues. Benjamin Franklin
• If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. Antoine de Saint- Exupery
• In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics. Earl Warren
• 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
• Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck. Immanuel Kant
• Metaphors to live by

.

… for knowledge and ignorance…

• The known is finite, the unknown infinite; intellectually we stand on an islet in the midst of an illimitable ocean of inexplicability. Our business in every generation is to reclaim a little more land. H. Huxley
• We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance. John Archibald Wheeler
• The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder. Ralph W. Sockman
• The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. Daniel J. Boorstin
• Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge. Isaac Singer
• A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded. Daniel Handler
• A child is an island of curiosity surrounded by a sea of question marks.
• I do not know what I appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on a seashore, and diverting myself now and then by finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Sir Issac Newton
• I swim across a sea of quotes, splashing in the words and riding the waves of wisdom. Terri Guillemets
• Knowledge,  Ignorance

.

… for poverty and wealth…

• No man is so poor as to have nothing worth giving: as well might the mountain streamlets say they have nothing to give the sea because they are not rivers. Give what you have. To someone it may be better than you dare to think. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• A global human society, characterised by islands of wealth, surrounded by a sea of poverty, is unsustainable. Thabo Mbeki
• Poverty,  Wealth

.

… for the human mind and the gifts of intuition and insight…

• It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely upon it. It’s my partner. Jonas Salk
• How remarkable we are in our ability to hide things from ourselves – our conscious minds only a small portion of our actual minds, jellyfish floating on a vast dark sea of knowing and deciding. Andrew Sean Greer
• The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea. Anne Morrow Lindbergh
• The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas. It is the night sea journey, the lone fisherman on a tropical sea with his nets, and you let these nets down – sometimes, something tears through them that leaves them in shreds and you just row for shore, and put your head under your bed and pray. At other times what slips through are the minutiae, the minnows of this ichthyological metaphor of idea chasing. But, sometimes, you can actually bring home something that is food, food for the human community that we can sustain ourselves on and go forward.  Terence McKenna
• At beyond continent of reality, there are oceans of ideas. Toba Beta
• Have you ever watched a crab on the shore crawling backward in search of the Atlantic Ocean, and missing? That’s the way the mind of man operates. L. Mencken
• Intuition,  Insight

.

… for danger, risk and trouble…

• As a grim skull lies covered beneath the fairest face; so does an abyss of torment lie beneath the surface of the glittering sea of sensual pleasure and dissipation. William Scott Downey
• He was swimming in a sea of other people’s expectations. Men had drowned in seas like that. Robert Jordon
• At times our lives seem like that of a tranquil island in a sea of chaos. The battle is to keep this sea of chaos at bay and not let it wash us away into utter chaos. Sanjeeva Ananthan
• Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another’s great tribulation; not because any man’s troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive you are free of them yourself is pleasant. Lucretius
• A wreck on shore is a beacon at sea. Proverb
• What would an ocean be without a monster lurking in the dark? It would be like sleep without dreams. Werner Herzog
• No one would have crossed the ocean if he could have gotten off the ship in the storm. Charles Kettering

.

… for cravings…

• An urge to engage in an addictive behavior can be seen as an ocean wave in that it starts small, gets bigger, crests, and finally subsides. Elisha Goldstein Ph.D
• Imagine that urges are like ocean waves that arrive crest and subside. They are small when they start, will grow in size, and then will break up and dissipate. Practise mindfulness regularly and especially notice any impulses or urges that appear. Then we are well prepared to ride these waves without giving in to the urge by using mindfulness.  Dr Christopher Walsh
• Cravings

.

… for action and courage…

• You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Rabindranath Tagore
• We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds. Aristotle Onassis
• We can’t be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don’t have something better. JoyBell C.
• We cannot cross the sea merely by staring at the water. Rabindranath Tagore
• It is better to meet danger than to wait for it. He that is on a lee shore, and foresees a hurricane, stands out to sea and encounters a storm to avoid a shipwreck. Charles Caleb Colton
• Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean. Christopher Reeve
• … for discovery and exploration
• Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. Andre Gide
• They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea. Francis Bacon
• There is no path to truth. Truth must be discovered, but there is no formula for its discovery.  What is formulated is not true.  You must set out on the uncharted sea, and the uncharted sea is yourself.  Jiddu Krishnamurti
• Action,  Courage

.

… for potential…

• The potential of the average person is like a huge ocean unsailed, a new continent unexplored, a world of possibilities waiting to be released and channelled toward some great good. Brian Tracy
• The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas. Terence McKenna
• Potential

.

… for emotions…

• In the sea of malice envy frequently gets out of her depth; and whilst she is expecting to see another drowned, she is either drowned herself or dashed against a rock. Giovanni Battista Basile
• Pleasure is a river running to the sea; happiness is the full, calm sea. Peter Kreeft
• If we are honest with ourselves, most of us will have to admit that we live out our lives in an ocean of fear. Jon Kabat-Zinn
• Emotions

.

… for interdependence in relationships…

• You are so weak. Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore. You need more help than you know. Rumi
• Whatever be the qualities of the man with whom a woman is united according to the law, such qualities even she assumes, like a river, united with the ocean. Guru Nanak
• Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean. Ryunosuke Satoro
• Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• Interdependence

.

… for the earth’s atmosphere…

• We live in an ocean of air like fish in a body of water. By our breathing we are attuned to our atmosphere. If we inhibit our breathing, we isolate ourselves from the medium in which we exist.  In all Oriental and mystic philosophies, the breath holds the secret to the highest bliss.  Alexander Lowen
• We live not, in reality, on the summit of a solid earth but at the bottom of an ocean of air. Thales of Miletus

.

Life is like an ocean with its ebbs and flows

• Life is a continuous ebb and flow, like the seasons, like the ocean’s waves. When we learn to “ride” with them, our life becomes easier, with less resistance.  Romy Macias
• Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink. Shunryu Suzuki
• Life is like sea-water; it never gets quite sweet until it is drawn up into heaven. P. Richter
• Life is an ebb and a flow

.

Life is like an ocean voyage …

• One ship drives east and another west, with the self-same winds that blow. ‘Tis the set of the sails and not the gales that determines where they go.  Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate, as we voyage along through life; ’tis the set of a soul that decides its goal and not the calm or the strife. Ella Wheeler Wilcox
• On life’s vast ocean diversely we sail. Reasons the card, but passion the gale. Alexander Pope
• An entire sea of water can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can’t put you down unless you allow it to get inside you. Goi Nasu

.

… to be navigated by our ideals and values

• Our ideals resemble the stars, which illuminate the night. No one will ever be able to touch them. But the men who, like the sailors on the ocean, take them for guides, will undoubtedly reach their goal. Carl Shurz

.

.

The ocean also makes a very powerful metaphor for spiritual matters …

• Solitude is an ocean with wonderful places hidden in its depths. Isaac of Nineveh
• We live as ripples of energy in the vast ocean of energy. Deepak Chopra
• The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence. Rabindranath Tagore

.

… to describe the immensity and depth of love…

• Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths! Rumi 
• Your true essence is your soul, which is external and exists in an ocean of love. Patricia Ord
• As the ocean is never full of water, so is the heart never full of love.
• Love

.

… to describe the ripple effects of our actions and thoughts…

• We are heirs to the results of our actions, to the intentions we bring to every moment we initiate. We make ripples upon the ocean of the universe through our very presence. Christina Feldman Jack Kornfield
• Action,  Thinking

.

… to describe the connectedness and unity of all things…

• We all drink from one water. We all breathe from one air. We rise from one ocean. And we live under one sky. Anwar Fazal
• Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me. Albert Schweitzer
• Just like a sunbeam can’t separate itself from the sun, and a wave can’t separate itself from the ocean, we can’t separate ourselves from one another. We are all part of a vast sea of love, one indivisible divine mind. Marianne Williamson
• As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin. Alan Watts
• We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep. William James
• Hostility comes from loneliness, from not seeing yourself like a drop falling into the ocean of humanity like everyone else. Mehmet Oz
• Connectedness,  Unity,  Oneness

.

… to describe the nature of God…

• Each is like a river that leaves behind its name and shape, the whole course of its path, to vanish into the vast sea of God. Dr. Richard Selzer
• The idea that an individual can find God is terribly self-centred. It is like a wave thinking it can find the sea. Sir John Templeton
• If someone were to ask me whether I believed in God, or saw God, or had a particular relationship with God, I would reply that I don’t separate God from my world in my thinking.  I feel that God is everywhere.  That’s why I never feel separated from God or feel I must seek God, any more than a fish in the ocean feels it must seek water.  In a sense, God is the “ocean” in which we live.  Robert Fulghum
• God

.

… to describe life and death…

• Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean. David Searls
• For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. Kahlil Gibran
• She watched the gap between ship and shore grow to a huge gulf. Perhaps this was a little like dying, the departed no longer visible to the others, yet both still existed, only in different worlds. Susan Wiggs
• Death

.

… to describe what is real and is not…

• Just for a moment imagine that you are experiencing an unpleasant night dream: You are in the ocean, swimming; you have gone out too far; you look back toward the shore and see that there is very little hope of rescue. Even though you shout your lungs out, no one can hear you. And so you are seized with fear. You struggle and strive to reach the shore, and, of course, the harder you fight, the harder the ocean fights you. There is only one thing left for you to do – drown. Yes, drown – but wait! In your fight, you shouted and someone heard you, came over and shook you, woke you up, and behold the miracle! The drowning self disappeared; the ocean disappeared; the struggle disappeared. You awakened and found that you had never left your comfortable home. All that was necessary in order to be released from the struggle was to awaken! Joel Goldsmith
• Reality is, you know, the tip of an iceberg of irrationality that we’ve managed to drag ourselves up onto for a few panting moments before we slip back into the sea of the unreal. Terence McKenna
• Reality

.

… to describe powerful, invisible forces at work…

• It is like a boat going to the ocean. Before it reaches the ocean it is dragged with much effort, but once it reaches the ocean it is propelled without effort by the wind. The distance it travels on the ocean in one day is farther than it could be dragged by the force in a hundred years. Avatamsaka Sutra

.

The mind is like an ocean and great peace is to be found below the surface …

• Through repeated practice of these methods we can get to the point where some disturbance may occur but the negative effects on our mind remain on the surface, like the waves that may ripple on the surface of an ocean but don’t have much effect deep down. The Dalai Lama
• The mind is like the Pacific Ocean. It waves, depending on the atmospheric conditions.  But even when it’s at its most tumultuous, if you learn to drop down twenty or thirty feet under the water there is just gentle calmness and stillness.  And it’s always present. Jon Kabat-Zinn
• From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free. Jacques Yves Cousteau

.

… in the calm, undisturbed depths …

• Learn this from water: loud splashes the brook but the oceans depth are calm. Gautama Buddha
• Mind can be compared to an ocean, and momentary mental events such as happiness, irritation, fantasies, and boredom to the waves that rise and fall on its surface. Just as the waves can subside to reveal the stillness of the ocean’s depths, so too is it possible to calm the turbulence of our mind to reveal its natural pristine clarity. Kathleen McDonald
• Waters from many rivers continually flow into the ocean but the ocean never overfills. In a like manner, desires and attachments constantly flow into the mind of the Illuminated One, but he or she , like the ocean in its deepest depths, is totally still and never disturbed. Bhagavad Gita
• I heard silence, silence infinite as the bottom of the ocean, a silence that sealed. Anne Spollen

.

… where priceless gifts and insights can be found…

• Let silence have you. And if you find you are still swimming on the surface of the ocean, let go and sink into the depths of love. Kar Kirpa Sahib
• Searching with my mind is like swimming on the surface – swim the whole ocean and I will find nothing. I sink to the place of stillness within. From here the inner presence nourishes me with living waters. From here my prayers carry much power. From here the voice speaks to me sweetly. Helps me in my day-to- day affairs. Tells me truths long forgotten by my race. John Kehoe

.

Keep your mind spacious like the ocean …

• Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment. Morihei Ueshiba
• Spaciousness

.

… and float effortlessly on the waves of your emotions

• I also like to think of physical symptoms and stressful thoughts or emotions as waves on the ocean of life. They rise and they fall. Instead of going rigid in the face of them, I try to calmly and steadily ride the ups and downs. Toni Bernhard, J.D.

.

Calm the waves of the mind by letting go of thoughts …

• Calm the winds of your thoughts, and there will be no waves on the ocean of your mind. Remez Sasson
• I would rather sink to the bottom of the sea for endless eons than seek liberation through all the saints of the universe. Shih- t’ou
• Calmness,  Letting go

.

… to discover your source as the ocean

• When a wave settles down, then it instantly recognizes that its source in ocean – infinite, silent, and unchanging – was always there. Tom Von Deck
• It is easy to believe we are each waves and forget we are also the ocean. Jon J. Muth

.

You are a droplet of water in a mighty ocean …

• When time comes for us to again rejoin the infinite stream of water flowing to and from the great timeless ocean, our little droplet of soulful water will once again flow with the endless stream. William Marks
• My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops? David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
• How could drops of water know themselves to be a river? Yet the river flows on. Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean. Ryunosuke Satoro
• Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, man does not lose his being in the society in which he lives. Man’s life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone, but for the development of his self. R. Ambedkar
• We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. Mother Teresa

.

… and by losing yourself in the ocean, you can come to know the ocean as yourself …

• As the smallest drop of water detached from the ocean contains all the qualities of the ocean, so man, detached in consciousness from the Infinite, contains within him its likeness; and as the drop of water must, by the law of its nature, ultimately find its way back to the ocean and lose itself in its silent depths, so must man, by the unfailing law of his nature, at last return to his source, and lose himself in the great ocean of the Infinite. James Allen
• All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop. Kabir

.

… for the entire ocean can be found in just one drop

• You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop. Rumi
• You are not a tiny, insignificant drop in a vast ocean. Your goal is to learn to see the ocean within the drop. Those who see themselves as perpetually “small” are sending vibrational energies that are also “small”. You are a part of an energy source that is so vast, so immeasurable that the mind cannot comprehend it. This lies at the core of you – and every being. Christin Sander
• In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence. Kahlil Gibran

.

Realise that you are not just a wave but the ocean itself …

• It is easy to believe we are each waves and forget we are also the ocean. Jon J. Muth
• The word “surrender” is often interpreted as giving up, as weakness, as admitting defeat. Although this is one way to use the word, we will use it in a different way. Surrendering means letting go of your resistance to the total openness of who you are. It means giving up the tension of the little vortex you believe yourself to be and realizing the deep power of the ocean you truly are. It means to open with no boundaries, emotional or physical, so you ease wide beyond any limiting sense of self you might have. David Deida
• The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun. Don Miguel Ruiz
• You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean. Alan Wilson Watts
• You are something that the whole universe is doing, in the same way that a wave is something that the whole ocean is doing. Alan Watts
• You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here. Alan Watts
• I am the shore and the ocean, awaiting myself on both sides. Dejan Stojanovic
• I am you; you are ME. You are the waves; I am the ocean. Know this and be free, be divine. Sri Sathya Sai Baba

.

… and you contain the ocean inside you

• Unlike a fountain that circulates the same water in an enclosed, perpetually recycling system, a human being circulates thoughts in an unlimited reservoir of self. Don’t limit yourself to being a mere fountain when you contain an ocean.  Vera Nazarian
• The ocean of the body crashes against the ocean of the heart. Between them is a barrier they cannot cross. Rumi
• Let us swim together in the ocean of our being. Jonathan Lockwood Huie
• The way to the shore is through the sea within you. Meeta Ahluwalia
• The river is within us, the sea is all about us; The sea is the land’s edge also. S. Eliot
• When I say, ‘I am’, I do not mean a separate entity with a body as its nucleus, I mean the totality of being, the ocean of consciousness, the entire universe of all that is known. I have nothing to desire for I am complete forever. Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Your heart is like the ocean, mysterious and dark. Bob Dylan
• We all have an edge. We all are floating our psyche on top with a great ocean underneath. Brad Dourif
• The sea lives in every one of us. Wyland

.

The same ebb and flow which you can see in the ocean runs through you

• Through all creation runs the same ebb and flow, ebb and flow, which you can see in the ocean. It is the life- pulse of creation. And there is in it pulse – the long ebb and flow of spring and fall, the short ebb and flow at your own wrist. Just so there are long spiritual spring-flows and fall-ebbs, and there are the short daily ones you can easily feel. And there are infinitely smaller ones of which you are not yet conscious, but to which you subconsciously respond. The spiritual tides of the One-Power flow in all veins. We feel them, and respond, but we as yet only dimly understand.   Elizabeth Towne
• There is no drop of water in the ocean, not even in the deepest parts of the abyss, that does not know and respond to the mysterious forces that create the tide. Rachel Carson
• 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

.

• A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy but won’t cross the street to vote in a national election. Bill Vaughn
• A pessimist is a person who is seasick during the entire voyage of life. Zig Zigler
• Asking is the beginning of receiving. Make sure you don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon. At least take a bucket so the kids won’t laugh at you. Jim Rohn
• Fish are always eating other fish; if fish could scream the ocean would be loud as shit. Mitch Hedberg
• How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean. Arthur C. Clarke
• I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living. Anaïs Nin
• If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean.
• Love is an ocean of emotions entirely surrounded by expenses. Arthur Dewar
• Man can now fly in the air like a bird, swim under the ocean like a fish, he can burrow into the ground like a mole. Now if only he could walk the earth like a man, this would be paradise. Tommy Douglas
• Moral codes are like the ocean. Some people live by them, while others, such as myself, would rather live by a lake. Jarod Kintz
• Nothing is wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn’t cure. Ross Macdonald
• Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man – who has no gills. Ambrose Bierce
• Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be if that didn’t happen. Steven Wright
• The only cure for seasickness is to sit on the shady side of an old brick church in the country.
• There comes a time in a man’s life when he hears the call of the sea. If the man has a brain in his head, he will hang up the phone immediately. Dave Barry
• There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates. James Russell Lowell
• What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? A nervous wreck.
• When I was a boy, the Dead Sea was only sick. George Burns
• Writers fish for the right words like fishermen fish for, um, whatever those aquatic creatures with fins and gills are called. Jarod Kintz
• You can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry. Most people do. Norman Juster

.

.