I swam across the rocks and compared myself favorably with the sars. To swim fishlike, horizontally, was the logical method in a medium eight hundred times denser than air. To halt and hang attached to nothing, no lines or air pipe to the surface, was a dream. At night I had often had visions of flying by extending my arms as wings. Now I flew without wings. (Since that first aqualung flight, I have never had a dream of flying.)
Jacques Yves CousteauIt takes generosity to discover the whole through others. If you realize you are only a violin, you can open yourself up to the world by playing your role in the concert.
Jacques Yves CousteauWe are living in an interminable succession of absurdities imposed by the myopic logic of short-term thinking.
Jacques Yves CousteauSometimes we are lucky enough to know that our lives have been changed, to discard the old, embrace the new, and run headlong down an immutable course
Jacques Yves CousteauThere are no boundaries in the real Planet Earth. No United States, no Soviet Union, no China, no Taiwan...Rivers flow unimpeded across the swaths of continents. The persistent tides - the pulse of the sea - do not discriminate; they push against all the varied shores on Earth.
Jacques Yves CousteauIt is fashionable nowadays to talk about the endless riches of the sea. The ocean is regarded as a sort of bargain basement, but I don't agree with that estimate. People don't realize that water in the liquid state is very rare in the universe. Away from earth it is usually a gas. This moisture is a blessed treasure, and it is our basic duty, if we don't want to commit suicide, to preserve it.
Jacques Yves CousteauOverconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today
Jacques Yves CousteauFrom 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 CousteauWe must plant the sea and herd its animals using the sea as farmers instead of hunters. That is what civilization is all about - farming replacing hunting.
Jacques Yves CousteauIf we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed and if we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect.
Jacques Yves CousteauWe have to prepare for what life could become in 40 years. We need to outline what is possible and what is impossible with the non-renewable resources of the Earth. What role will technological improvement play? Taking all this into account, what kind of life can we produce in the best way for 10 billion people? That's a problem that needs to be solved.
Jacques Yves CousteauIf human civilization is going to invade the waters of the earth, then let it be first of all to carry a message of respect.
Jacques Yves CousteauIt'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.
Jacques Yves CousteauWith earth's burgeoning human population to feed we must turn to the sea with understanding and new technology. We need to farm it as we farm the land.
Jacques Yves CousteauIf we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.
Jacques Yves CousteauThe 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.
Jacques Yves CousteauHowever fragmented the world, however intense the national rivalries, it is an inexorable fact that we become more interdependent every day.
Jacques Yves CousteauWe know how to organize warfare, but do we know how to act when confronted with peace?
Jacques Yves CousteauAll life is part of a complex relationship in which each is dependent upon the others, taking from, giving to and living with all the rest.
Jacques Yves Cousteau