Without ethics, everything happens as if we were all five billion passengers on a big machinery and nobody is driving the machinery. And it’s going faster and faster, but we don’t know where.
—Jacques Cousteau
Topics: Ethics
Man, of all the animals, is probably the only one to regard himself as a great delicacy.
—Jacques Cousteau
Topics: Animals
To yackety-yak about the past is for me time lost. Every morning I wake up saying, ‘I’m still alive—a miracle.’ And so I keep on pushing.
—Jacques Cousteau
Topics: Life and Living, The Past
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.
—Jacques Cousteau
Topics: Future
We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.
—Jacques Cousteau
Topics: Water, One liners
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
—Jacques Cousteau
Topics: Weight
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.
—Jacques Cousteau
Topics: Faith, Future, Belief, Hope
The reason I love the sea I cannot explain—it’s physical. When you dive you begin to feel like an angel. It’s a liberation of your weight.
—Jacques Cousteau
Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.
—Jacques Cousteau
Topics: Water
If a man for whatever reason has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.
—Jacques Cousteau
Topics: Life, Reason
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Douglas MacArthur American Military Leader
Hyman G. Rickover American Admiral
Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell Founder of the Boy Scouts
George Marshall American Military Leader
George S. Patton American Military Leader
Eddie Rickenbacker American Aviator
H. Norman Schwarzkopf United States Army Officer
Colin Powell American Military Leader
Omar Bradley American Military Leader
William Tecumseh Sherman American Military General