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Reefs Quotes

Browse 121 quotes about Reefs.

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Reefs Quotes

“I watched the enormity of the clouds for several minutes. What I wanted to experience in the water, I realized, was how life of the reef was layered and intertwined. I now had many individual pieces at hand: named images, nouns. How were they related? What were the verbs? Which syntaxes were indigenous to the place? I asked a dozen knowledgeable people. No one was inclined to elaborate- or they didn’t know. “Did you see the octopus?” Someone shouted after the dive. Yes, I thought, but who among us knows what it was doing? What else was THERE, just then? WHY?”

MysteryOceanCuriosityDivingReefs
Book:About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory
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“The Great Barrier Reef is so extensive that no human mind can take it in, the exception perhaps being astronauts who've seen its full length from outer space. Gigantism pervades its statistics. Roughly half the size of Texas, it encloses some 215,000 square miles of coastland, sea, and coral. It extends for about 1,430 miles along Australia's east coast, and encompasses around three thousand individual reefs and a thousand islands. So vast is it, in fact, that it's only since the 1970s, with the establishment of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, that a size has been more or less agreed upon. Prior to that, explorers and navigators gave varying figures for its length.”

AustraliaReefsGreat Barrier Reef
Book:The Reef: A Passionate History: The Great Barrier Reef from Captain Cook to Climate Change
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“Coral reefs are under assault. They are rapidly being degraded by human activities. They are over-fished, bombed and poisoned. They are smothered by sediment, and choked by algae growing on nutrient-rich sewage and fertilizer run-off. They are damaged by irresponsible tourism and are being severely stressed by the warming of the world's oceans. Each of these pressures is bad enough in itself, but together, the cocktail is proving lethal.”

WorldHumansEnoughRunningTogetherAnimalRichGrowingActivityProveCreaturesOceanPressureAssaultStressedIrresponsibleTourismCocktailsHuman ActivityReefsNutrientsFertilizerSewageAlgaeCoral Reefs
Author:Klaus Topfer
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“And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, More strong than all poetic thoughts; Which he may read that binds the sheaf, Or builds the house, or digs the grave, And those wild eyes that watch the waves In roarings round the coral reef.”

HumansMayHandsEyeHouseStrongChristPerfectWatchesBreathsRoundsWaveDeedsGravesPoeticCreedsLovelinessRoaringReefsHuman HandsCoral ReefsWild Eyes
Book:Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Selected Poetry: A Broadview Anthology of British Literature Edition
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“I have discovered a universal rule which seems to apply more than any other in all human actions or words: namely, to steer away from affectation at all costs, as if it were a rough and dangerous reef, and (to use perhaps a novel word for it) to practise in all things a certain nonchalance [sprezzatura] which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless.”

IfsHumansDoeUseSeemsActionCertainNovelDangerousCostAll ThingsUniversalRoughSteersArtistryEffortlessPractiseReefsHuman ActionsNonchalance
Author:Baldassare Castiglione
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“The man who boldly transgresses, amassing a great heap unjustly--by force, in time, he will strike his sail, when trouble seizes him as the yardarm is splintered. He calls on those who hear nothing and he struggles in the midst of the whirling waters. The god laughs at the hot-headed man, seeing him, who boasted that this would never happen, exhausted by distress without remedy and unable to surmount the cresting wave. He wrecks the happiness of his earlier life on the reef of Justice, and he perishes unwept, unseen.”

MenHappensForceWaterJusticeLaughingStruggleSeeingTroubleHe ManHotWaveStrikesMidstRemedySailDistressExhaustedUnseenWrecksReefsHot Headed
Author:Aeschylus
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“Baseball is about homecoming. It is a journey by theft and strength, guile and speed, out around first to the far island of second, where foes lurk in the reefs and the green sea suddenly grows deeper, then to turn sharply, skimming the shallows, making for a shore that will show a friendly face, a color, a familiar language and, at third, to proceed, no longer by paths indirect but straight, to home.”

FirstsShowsHomeFacesTurnsLanguageGrowsPathJourneySeaColorBaseballThirdsGreenDeeperSpeedFamiliarIslandsFriendlyShoreFoeTheftIndirectHomecomingReefsGuileSkimmingFriendly Faces
Book:A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti
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“On the whole, and providing one is in good spirits and feeling reasonably bright, it is not hard to converse for a short space of time on subjects about which one knows little, and it is indeed often amusing to see how cunningly one can steer the conversational barque, hoisting and lowering her sails, tacking this way and that to avoid reefs, and finally racing feverishly for home with the outboard engine making a loud and cheerful noise.”

KnowsWayLittlesHardWholeFeelingsHomeSpiritSpaceSubjectsConversationNoiseLoudRacingEnginesProvidingSailCheerfulAmusingSteersConversesReefs
Author:Virginia Graham
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“Not infrequently, when a man asks a woman to marry him, he means that he wants her to help him love himself, and if, blinded by her own feeling, she takes him for her captain, her pleasure craft becomes a pirate ship, the colours change to a black flag with a sinister sign, and her inevitable destiny is the coral reef.”

IfsMenWantMeanHelpingFeelingsAsksBlackPleasureDestinyShipsCraftsInevitableColourFlagsCaptainsPirateBlindedSinisterReefsCoral ReefsPirate Ships
Book:The Myrtle Reed Year Book: Epigrams and Opinions from the Writings and Sayings of Myrtle Reed
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“The theory which I would offer, is simply, that as the land with the attached reefs subsides very gradually from the action of subterranean causes, the coral-building polypi soon raise again their solid masses to the level of the water: but not so with the land; each inch lost is irreclaimably gone; as the whole gradually sinks, the water gains foot by foot on the shore, till the last and highest peak is finally submerged.”

WholeActionLastsLostCausesWaterLevelsGoneFeetLandBuildingTheoryOffersHighestMassGainsRaisesShoreInchesReefsSubmerged
Book:Journal of Researches Into the Geology and Natural History of the Varoius Countries Visited by H.M.S. Beagle, Under the Command of Captain Fitzroy from 1832 to 1836 by Charles Darwin
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“Are coral reefs growing from the depths of the oceans? ... [The] reply is a simple negative; and a single fact establishes its truth. The reef-forming coral zoophytes, as has been shown, cannot grow at greater depths than 100 or 120 feet; and therefore in seas deeper than this, the formation or growth of reefs over the bottom is impossible.”

Has BeensFactsGrowsGrowthSimpleGreaterGrowingImpossibleSeaFeetOceanNegativeDepthBottomDeeperFormationReefsCoral Reefs
Author:James Dwight Dana
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“A billion homo sapiens are added every 11 years to the planet. The hypertrophy of a single species pushes other life-forms out of bed and into extinction. The decline of biological diversity is real and severe. The alarming loss of soil fertility, forest cover, and coral reef viability and the release of fossilized CO2 that nature put away 300 million years ago in its march toward greater diversity - all these "losses" and many others are the result of one life-form annihilating other life-forms in its immoral confusion of "dominion" with "domination."”

YearsRealFormLossResultsMillionsGreaterPlanetsBedDiversityYears AgoSpeciesEnvironmentalBillionsForestsConfusionReleaseSoilMarchDeclineSevereDominationImmoralExtinctionStewardshipDominionHomo SapiensFertilityCo2ReefsCoral Reefs
Author:Leonard Sweet
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“You are leaving port under sealed orders and in a troubled period. You cannot know whither you are going or what you are to do. But why not take the Pilot on board who knows the nature of your sealed orders from the outset, and who will shape your entire voyage accordingly? He knows the shoals and the sand banks, the rocks and the reefs, He will steer you safely into that celestial harbor where your anchor will be cast for eternity. Let His almighty nail-pierced hands hold the wheel, and you will be safe.”

KnowsHandsOrderNatureRocksPeriodsShapesSafeEternityLeavingCastsBoardsWheelsSandWhy NotPilotsAlmightyNailsHarborsAnchorsVoyagesCelestialPortSteersReefs
Author:Peter Marshall
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“It's coming to America first, The cradle of the best and of the worst. It's here they got the range And the machinery for change And it's here they got the spiritual thirst. It's here the family's broken And it's here the lonely say That the heart has got to open In a fundamental way: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. O mighty Ship of State! To the Shores of Need Past the Reefs of Greed Through the Squalls of Hate Sail on, sail on.”

WayNeedsFirstsHeartStatesAmericaPastSpiritualHateDemocracyWorstBrokenLonelyFundamentalsGreedShipsRangeShoreSailThirstMachineryCradleReefsComing To AmericaSpiritual Thirst
Book:The Lyrics of Leonard Cohen: Enhanced Edition
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“We've lost half the summer sea ice in the Arctic. We've wiped out an enormous percentage of the world's coral reefs. We see huge changes in the planet's hydrology already, the cycles of drought and flood both amped up because warm air holds more water vapor than cold. These things are happening with a one-degree increase and going to two degrees won't be twice as bad, the increase in damage won't be linear, it most certainly will be exponential. So it was precisely the wrong moment to elect Trump.”

WorldTwoMomentsLostWaterHalfAirSeaPlanetsHugeColdTrumpDegreesSummerHappeningsIncreaseWarmEnormousIceDamageCyclesFloodPercentagesLinearDroughtArcticReefsVaporCoral ReefsHuge Changes
Author:Bill McKibben
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“A friend will tell you she saw your old boyfriend - and he's a priest.”

FunnySawsFriendsCutePriestsBoyfriendFunny RelationshipReefsEx BoyfriendOld BoyfriendFunny Boyfriend
Book:The Erma Bombeck Collection: If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?, Motherhood, and The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank
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