To stand at the edge of the sea, to sense the ebb and flow of the tides, to feel the breath of a mist moving over a great salt marsh, to watch the flight of shore birds that have swept up and down the surf lines of the continents for untold thousands of years, to see the running of the old eels and the young shad to the sea, is to have knowledge of things that are as nearly eternal as any earthly life can be.
- Rachel Carson
source: Paul Brooks, Rachel Carson (1972). “The house of life: Rachel Carson at work”
topic: Running, Moving, Years, Marshes, Mother Nature
...recognize and respect Earth's beautiful systems of balance, between the presence of animals on land, the fish in the sea, birds in the air, mankind, water, air, and land. Most importantly there must always be awareness of the actions by people that can disturb this precious balance.
- Margaret Mead
topic: Beautiful, Respect, Animal, Fish In The Sea, Sea Birds
...as the slow sea sucked at the shore and then withdrew, leaving the strip of seaweed bare and the shingle churned, the sea birds raced and ran upon the beaches. Then that same impulse to flight seized upon them too. Crying, whistling, calling, they skimmed the placid sea and left the shore. Make haste, make speed, hurry and begone; yet where, and to what purpose? The restless urge of autumn, unsatisfying, sad, had put a spell upon them and they must flock, and wheel, and cry; they must spill themselves of motion before winter came.
- Daphne du Maurier
topic: Beach, Autumn, Winter, Seaweed, Placid
Dwelling beside a body of water is tonic for the weary psyche. Sea smells, sea birds, seawrack, sands - alternately cool, warm, moist and dry - a taste of brine and the presence of the rocking, slopping bluegraygreen spit-flecked waters, has the effect of rinsing the emotions, bathing the outlook, bleaching the conscience.
- Roger Zelazny
source: Roger Zelazny (2001). “Isle of the Dead ; Eye of Cat”, Ibooks
topic: Sea, Smell, Dwelling, Bleaching, Bathing
Sitting at our back doorsteps, all we need to live a good life lies about us. Sun, wind, people, buildings, stones, sea, birds and plants surround us. Cooperation with all these things brings harmony, opposition to them brings disaster and chaos.
- Bill Mollison
topic: Good Life, Lying, Wind, Permaculture, Sea Birds
Out of the choked Devonian waters emerged sight and sound and the music that rolls invisible through the composer's brain. They are there still in the ooze along the tideline, though no one notices. The world is fixed, we say: fish in the sea, birds in the air. But in the mangrove swamps by the Niger, fish climb trees and ogle uneasy naturalists who try unsuccessfully to chase them back to the water. There are things still coming ashore.
- Loren Eiseley
source: Loren Eiseley (2011). “The Immense Journey: An Imaginative Naturalist Explores the Mysteries of Man and Nature”, p.54, Vintage
topic: Sight, Air, Sea, Fish In The Sea, Sea Birds
WE DASH THE BLACK RIVER, ITS flats smooth as stone. Not a ship, not a dinghy, not one cry of white. The water lies broken, cracked from the wind. This great estuary is wide, endless. The river is brackish, blue with the cold. It passes beneath us blurring. The sea birds hang above it, they wheel, disappear. We flash the wide river, a dream of the past. The deeps fall behind, the bottom is paling the surface, we rush by the shallows, boats beached for winter, desolate piers. And on wings like the gulls, soar up, turn, look back.
- James Salter
topic: Dream, Lying, Fall, Piers, Dinghies
I did not think I should be ever loved: do you indeed Love me so much as now you say you do? Ask of the sea-bird if it loves the sea, Ask of the roses if they love the rain, Ask of the little lark, that will not sing Till day break, if it loves to see the day: And yet, these are but empty images, Mere shadows of my love, which is a fire So great that all the waters of the main Can not avail to quench it.
- Oscar Wilde
source: Oscar Wilde (2008). “The Duchess of Padua: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.39, ReadHowYouWant.com
topic: Rain, Thinking, Fire, Love Rain, Quench