Frasi di Jacques-Yves Cousteau

“La condizione per la conoscenza è la curiosità.”

“Perché pensiamo all'oceano come a una semplice riserva di cibo, petrolio e minerali? Il mare non è un banco delle occasioni. Siamo accecati dalla cupidigia per le sue grandi ricchezze subacquee. La più grande risorsa dell'oceano non è materiale, ma è data dalla fonte illimitata d'ispirazione e di benessere che ne traiamo. Ma rischiamo di contaminarlo per sempre proprio quando stiamo imparando la sua scienza, la sua arte e la sua filosofia e come vivere nel suo grembo.”

“La notizia si sparse per il Calypso dalla sala macchine al ponte, e tutti affollarono la mensa per vedere i reperti. Con gesto rituale Ichac alzò le coppe: «Sono state riunite insieme con i manici genelli ad angolo retto fra loro» disse separandole. «Io sto ora separando oggetti che uno specialista imballò in questo modo 2200 anni fa.»
L'osservazione fece colpo sulla compagnia. Le coppe erano state tornite e riunite da esseri viventi i cui abili risultati erano passati dalle loro mani alle nostre attraverso un arco di duemila anni. Noi non intendevamo immergerci semplicemente per andare a pescare dei pezzi da museo, ma per avere notizia di quegli artigiani, per sapere come la loro merce delicata potesse giungere fin nelle acque della Gallia, e sopratutto - per marinai come noi - per avere dati sulla nave e sull'abilità marinara della ciurma. Che specie di nave era quella? Come era stata costruita? Che sorta di uomini l'avevano manovrata? Degli indizi sarebbero potuti uscire dalla fanghiglia sotto di noi per raccontare ogni cosa.”

“For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.”

“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.”

“All 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.”

“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.”

“The glory of nature provides evidence that God exists”

“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.”

“When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself”

“Sometimes we are lucky enough to know that our lives have been changed, to discard the old, embrace the new, and turn headlong down an immutable course.”

“The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it”

“We are living in an interminable succession of absurdities imposed by the myopic logic of short-term thinking.”

“In the last few decades, a terribly pernicious rumor has been circulated by the press. It claims, exhibiting a level of stupidity heretofore considered impossible, that a human being could crawl through the arteries of a blue whale. Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. I do not know why this deleterious rumor has been systematically repeated, but its very existence is an ugly cancer upon the face of science.”

“I am not a scientist. I am, rather, an impresario of scientists.”

“We 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.”

“Man, of all the animals, is probably the only one to regard himself as a great delicacy.”

“Buoyed by water, he can fly in any direction — up, down, sideways — by merely flipping his hand. Under water, man becomes an archangel.”

“If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed — if we are not willing — we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect.”

“Farming as we do it is hunting, and in the sea we act like barbarians.”

“I said that the oceans were sick but they're not going to die. There is no death possible in the oceans — there will always be life — but they're getting sicker every year.”

“The sea is the universal sewer.”

“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.”