Sylvia Earle famous quotes

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

#Ocean #Heart #Blue

It's an appreciation for life generally, every bit of life, the smallest creature that lives in the intestines of termites that make termite life possible - to the leaves that turn out oxygen and grab carbon dioxide and with water make simple sugars that feed much of the world. I mean, these are everyday miracles.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Appreciation #Mean #Simple

The oceans deserve our respect and care, but you have to know something before you can care about it.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Care #Deserve

We want to think of ourselves as truly special creatures that are unique in the universe and, well, we are. And we have that capacity to wonder, to question, and to see ourselves in the context of all of life that has preceded the present time, and all that will go off far into the future, one way or another.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Unique #Thinking #Special

With every drop of water you drink, every breath you take, you're connected to the sea. No matter where on Earth you live.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Sea #Water

If Darwin could get into a submarine and see what I've seen, thousand of feet beneath the ocean, I am just confident that he would be inspired to sit down and start writing all over again.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Writing #Feet

Every time I slip into the ocean, it's like going home.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Home #Sea

When some people look at a shrimp they think, "Hmm. Delicious." When I look at a shrimp I think, "You're a miracle, absolutely incredible. Your ancestors have gone back hundreds of millions of years." And to develop a thing as simple as a shrimp cocktail, you have to calculate the hundreds of millions of years that have preceded that moment where you're sitting there with your sauce and fork poised.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Simple #Thinking #Years

No water, no life. No blue, no green.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Blue #Water

It has taken these many hundreds of millions of years to fine-tune the Earth to a point where it is suitable for the likes of us.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Taken #Years #Earth

We need to respect the oceans and take care of them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Care #Needs

Most of life on Earth has a deep past, much deeper than ours. And we have benefited from the distillation of all preceding history, call it evolutionary history if you will.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Past #Earth #Deeper

Far and away, the greatest threat to the ocean, and thus to ourselves, is ignorance. But we can do something about that.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Ignorance #Threat

If Darwin could see what we now see, what we now know about the ocean, about the atmosphere, about the nature of life, as we now understand it, about the importance of microbes - I think he would just beam with joy that many of the thoughts and the glimpses of the majesty of life on Earth that he had during his life, now magnified many times over.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Thinking #Joy

Great attention gets paid to rainforests because of the diversity of life there. Diversity in the oceans is even greater.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Marine #Diversity

The diversity of life on Earth, generally, is astonishing. But despite those large numbers, it's also important to recognize that every species, one way or another, is vulnerable to extinction. And in our time on Earth our impact on the diversity of life has been profound.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Numbers #Impact #Profound

I hope for your help to explore and protect the wild ocean in ways that will restore the health and, in so doing, secure hope for humankind. Health to the ocean means health for us.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Mean #Way

Rather than be afraid of evolution and try to stifle inquiry, people should revel in the joys of knowing and find a serenity and a joy in being a part the rest of life on Earth. Not apart from it, but a part of it.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Knowing #People #Joy

Ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There are still some krill in Antarctica. There are a few oysters in Chesapeake Bay. Half the coral reefs are still in pretty good shape, a jeweled belt around the middle of the planet. There's still time, but not a lot, to turn things around.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Blue #Oysters #Whales

The observations that have developed over the years have given us perspective about where we fit in. We are newcomers, really recent arrivals on a planet that is four and a half billion years old.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Years #Perspective #Half

Sharks are beautiful animals, and if you're lucky enough to see lots of them, that means that you're in a healthy ocean. You should be afraid if you are in the ocean and don't see sharks.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Beautiful #Ocean #Mean

Evolution is not something to be feared. It's to be celebrated, embraced, and understood.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Evolution #Understood

Success underwater depends mostly on how you conduct yourself. Diving can be the most relaxing experience in the world. Your weight seems to disappear. Space travel will be available only to a few individuals for some time, but the oceans are available to almost everyone - now.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Space #World

People I know who succeed don't mind working. Those who are competent seem to like doing things well -- not stopping because they haven't accomplished what they wanted to on the first go-round. They're willing to do it twenty times, if necessary. There's an illusion that the good people can easily do something, and it's not necessarily true. They're just determined to do it right. I was impressed by hearing one of the women at Radcliffe talk about writing a poem, how many revisions a single poem sometimes has to go through -- fifty or sixty revisions to come out with a poem sixteen lines long.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Writing #Long #People

I have lots of heroes: anyone and everyone who does whatever they can to leave the natural world better than they found it.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Hero #World #Doe

We've got to somehow stabilize our connection to nature so that in 50 years from now, 500 years, 5,000 years from now there will still be a wild system and respect for what it takes to sustain us.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Years #Connections #Stills

The image of Earth from space transformed our view of ourselves. It is maybe the most important image that exists - because we can see ourselves in context in a way that otherwise would be really hard to explain. It should inspire us to wonder about it, to want to know everything we can about it and do everything we can to take care of it.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Views #Space #Inspire

Like a shipwreck or a jetty, almost anything that forms a structure in the ocean, whether it is natural or artificial over time, collects life.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Natural #Form

This is a living planet. Look around. Mars, Venus, Jupiter. Look beyond our solar system. Where else is there a place that works, that is just right for the likes of us? It has not happened just instantly. It is vulnerable to our actions. But it's the result of four and a half billion years of evolution, of change over time. And it changes every day, all the time. It would be in our interest to try to maintain a certain level of stability that has enabled us to prosper, to not wreck the very systems that give us life.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Years #Giving #Trying

When I arrived on the planet, there were only two billion. Wildlife was more abundant, we were less so; now the situation is reversed.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Two #Wildlife #Planets

Many of us ask what can I, as one person, do, but history shows us that everything good and bad starts because somebody does something or does not do something.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Ocean #Doe #Conservation

I suggest to everyone: Look in the mirror. Ask yourself: Who are you? What are your talents? Use them, and do what you love.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Mirrors #Use #Looks

I want everybody to go jump in the ocean to see for themselves how beautiful it is, how important it is to get acquainted with fish swimming in the ocean, rather than just swimming with lemon slices and butter.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Beautiful #Ocean #Swimming

Scientists never stop asking. They're little kids who never grew up.
-- Sylvia Earle

#Kids #Littles #Asking