A biography for Jacques Yves Cousteauhasn’t been written yet.
“When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.”
“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”
“People protect what they love.”
“I believe that national sovereignties will shrink in the face of universal interdependence.”
“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.”
“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 sea is the universal sewer.”
“The real cure for our environmental problems is to understand that our job is to salvage Mother Nature. We are facing a formidable enemy in this field. It is the hunters... and to convince them to leave their guns on the wall is going to be very difficult.”
“A lot of people attack the sea, I make love to it.”
“I am not a scientist. I am, rather, an impresario of scientists.”
“What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on.”
“We 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.”
“The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it.”
“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.”
“Man, of all the animals, is probably the only one to regard himself as a great delicacy.”
“Farming as we do it is hunting, and in the sea we act like barbarians.”
“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.”
“If 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.”
“It 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.”
“The road to the future leads us smack into the wall. We simply ricochet off the alternatives that destiny offers. Our survival is no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps 100 years.”