"The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides. The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence. It is nothing but love and emotion."
"The sea does not belong to despots. Upon its surface men can still exercise unjust laws, fight, tear one another to pieces, and be carried away with terrestrial horrors. But at thirty feet below its level, their reign ceases, their influence is quenched, and their power disappears." -- French author (and often considered the father of science fiction) Jules Verne (2/8/1828 - 3/24/1905), from his "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" (1870). Verne also authored such classics as "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1864), and "Around the World in Eighty Days" (1872).
Verne wrote movingly and respectfully about the Earth's grandeur and about man's relationship with it, good and bad. In his lifetime, he was rebuffed by established authors and poets, and was snubbed by the Académie Française, but awarded France's Legion of Honour in 1892, its highest civilian order of merit.
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