Sea Pearls Quotes & Sayings

Learn to recognize the false dawn from the true; distinguish the color of the wine from the color of the cup. Then it may be that patience and time may produce, out of the spectrum-viewing sight, true vision, and you will behold colors other than these mortal hues, you will see pearls instead of stones. Pearls, did I say? Nay more, you will become a sea, you will become a sun traveling the sky. — Rumi

Gentlemen, four-fifths of the earth's surface is covered by seas; that is unquestionably too much; the world's surface, the map of oceans and dry land, must be corrected. We shall give the world the workforce of the sea, gentlemen. This will no longer be the style of Captain van Toch; we shall replace the adventure story of pearls by the hymnic paean of labour. — Karel Capek

The sea does not contain all the pearls, the earth does not enclose all the treasures, and the flint-stone does not inclose all the diamonds, since the head of man encloses wisdom. — Saadi

Those who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls. — Charles Spurgeon

A few years ago, long after it had been closed, Eli said he saw a girl swimming in it, coming out of the water in a bikini, laughing at her frigthtened boyfriend, seaweed snaking around her. He said she looked like a mermaid.
Deenie always pictured it like in one of those books of mythology she used to love, a girl rising from the foam gritted with pearls, mussels, the glitter of the sea.
"It looks beautiful", her mother had said once when they were driving by at night, its waters opaline. "It is beautiful. But it makes people sick."
To Deenie, it was one of many interesting things that adults said would kill you: Easter lilles, jellyfish, copperhead snakes with their diamond heads, tails bright as sulfur. Don't touch, don't taste, don't get too close.
And then, last week. — Megan Abbott

I must go now."
"Stay up the night with me! We'll go to the fish market. There are great noble monsters packed in ice. There are turtles, live ones, for famous restaurants. We'll rescue one and write messages on his shell and put him in the sea, Shell, seashell. Or we'll go to the vegetable market. They've got red-net bags full of onions that look like huge pearls. Or we'll go down to Forty-second Street and see the movies and buy a mimeographed bulletin of jobs we can get in Pakistan
"
"I work tomorrow."
"Which has nothing to do with it."
"But I'd better go now."
"I know this is unheard in America, but I'll walk you home."
"I live on Twenty-third Street."
"Exactly what I'd hoped. It's over a hundred blocks. — Leonard Cohen

Love sees ten million fathoms down, till dazzled by the floor of pearls. The eye is Love's own magic glass, where all things that are not of earth, glide in supernatural light. There are not so many fishes in the sea, as there are sweet images in lovers' eyes. In those miraculous translucencies swim the strange eye-fish with wings, that sometimes leap out, instinct with joy; moist fish-wings wet the lover's cheek. Love's eyes are holy things; therein the mysteries of life are lodged; looking in each other's eyes, lovers see the ultimate secret of the worlds; and with thrills eternally untranslatable, feel that Love is god of all. Man or woman who has never loved, nor once looked deep down into their own lover's eyes, they know not the sweetest and the loftiest religion of this earth. Love is both Creator's and Saviour's gospel to mankind; a volume bound in rose-leaves, clasped with violets, and by the beaks of humming-birds printed with peach-juice on the leaves of lilies. — Herman Melville

My cough is much worse at night and often prevents me from sleeping. It is not so much the daytime tiredness that I resent, but the inability to proceed uninter- rupted with my dreams, to run and play with my fancies, and, at last, in the early hours of the morning, to be visited with visions like a holy madman. The dreamer is like a Delian diver, fishing for pearls from the depths of our inner sea of knowledge; and I must have solved, or rather resolved, many more problems in my sleep than in my conscious hours. — Neel Burton

The sea hath its pearls
The heaven hath its stars
But my heart, my heart
Has its love. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Dive into the sea of thought, and find there pearls beyond price. — Moses Ibn Ezra

Satan rejoiced when Adam (peace be upon him) came out of Paradise, but he did not know that when a diver sinks into the sea, he collects pearls and then rises again. — Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya

To the seeker after pearls, silence is a speaking argument, for no breath comes forth from the diver of the sea. — Saib Tabrizi

If you roll a pearl around your mouth it slowly reveals the dreams of oysters, memories of the sea, the taste of orgasm. — Chloe Thurlow

Off come her skirts and petticoats, her lace cuffs and collar, her shoes and whalebone stay, until she lies on her side in nothing but a cotton shift and endless strands of pearls. Dust hangs in a crack of light between red velvet drapes, like stars.

Her dreams are glimpses, bewildered--celestial charts, oceanic swells, massive, moving bodies of water, the heavens as heavenly liquid, familiar whirlpools, the universe as a ship lost at sea--but the ship she imagines arrived safely, years ago, loaded with their possessions. — Danielle Dutton

The heart of man is very much like the sea, it has its storms, it has its tides and in its depths it has its pearls too — Vincent Van Gogh

His mind was like the sea itself: troubled, and too deep for the bravest man's descent, throwing up now and again, for the naked eye to wonder at, treasure and debris long forgotten on the bottom - bones and jewels, fantastic shells, jelly that had once been flesh, pearls that had once been eyes. And he was at the mercy of this sea, hanging there with darkness all around him. — James Baldwin

All things of the sea belong to Venus; pearls and
shells and alchemists' gold and kelp and the riggish
smell of neap tides, the inshore green, and purple
further out and the joy of distances and the roar of
falling masonry, all these are hers, but she doesn't
come out of the sea for all of us. — John Cheever

There are seven mermaid princesses and seven pearls. The reason I sing is to convey my love. The reason the pearl sparkels is to brighten the sea. And so, I can never forget...the sound of the waves or the warmth of the sea. — Pink Hanamori

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell: Ding-dong Hark! now I hear them, - Ding-dong, bell. — William Shakespeare

There is many a rich stone laid up in the bowels of the earth, many a fair pearl laid up in the bosom of the sea, that never was seen, nor never shall be. — Joseph Hall

In our methodical American life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons at least resign themselves to being decently happy in June. They accept June. They compliment its weather. They complain of the earlier months as cold, and so spend them in the city; and they complain of the later months as hot, and so refrigerate themselves on some barren sea-coast. God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls; most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the rest away. — Thomas Wentworth Higginson

Over and over, I ran at the sea, beating it until I was so tired I could barely stand. And then the next time I fell down, I just lay there and let the waves wash over me, and I wondered what would happen if I stopped trying to get back up. Just let my body go. Would I be washed out to sea? The sharks would eat my limbs and organs. Little fish would feed on my fingertips. My beautiful white bones would fall to the bottom of the ocean, where anemones would grow upon them like flowers. Pearls would rest in my eye sockets. — Ruth Ozeki

It seemed there was an announcement every five minutes from the mythical conductor, imparting sagacious gems such as "large items should be placed in the overhead luggage racks", or that "passengers should report any unattended items to the train crew as soon as possible". I wondered at whom these pearls of wisdom were aimed; some passing extraterrestrial, perhaps, or a yak herder from Ulan Bator who had trekked across the steppes, sailed the North Sea, and found himself on the Glasgow-Edinburgh service with literally no prior experience of mechanized transport to call upon? — Gail Honeyman

If diving once does not bring you pearls, you need not therefore conclude that the sea is without them. — Ramakrishna

Listen, O drop, give yourself up without regret,
and in exchange gain the Ocean.
Listen, O drop, bestow upon yourself this honor,
and in the arms of the Sea be secure.
Who indeed should be so fortunate?
An Ocean wooing a drop!
In God's name, in God's name, sell and buy at once!
Give a drop, and take this Sea full of pearls. — Rumi

A very sea of thought; neither calm nor clear, if you will, yet wherein the toughest pearl-diver may dive to his utmost depth, and return not only with sea-wreck but with true orients. — Thomas Carlyle

SUMMER SHOWER. A drop fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof; A half a dozen kissed the eaves, And made the gables laugh. A few went out to help the brook, That went to help the sea. Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, What necklaces could be! The dust replaced in hoisted roads, The birds jocoser sung; The sunshine threw his hat away, The orchards spangles hung. The breezes brought dejected lutes, And bathed them in the glee; The East put out a single flag, And signed the fete away. — Emily Dickinson

But here are wine and beautiful young girls, Be wise and hide your sorrows in their curls, Dive as you will in life's mysterious sea, You shall not bring us any better pearls. — Christopher Hitchens

What can we expect from an empty shell
Where many hearts of pearl once beat to dwell
Waves fail to break hard layer's bond of love
Wailing shore sends memoir to the sky above — Munia Khan

What do you really possess,
and what have you gained?
What pearls have you brought up
from the depth of the sea?
On the day of death,
bodily senses will vanish:
do you have the spiritual light
to accompany your heart?
When dust fills these eyes in the grave,
will your grave shine bright? — Rumi

For in my nature I quested for beauty, but God, God hath sent me to sea for pearls. — Christopher Smart

O son, burst thy chains and be free! How long wilt thou be a bondsman to silver and gold?
If thou pour the sea into a pitcher, how much will it hold? One day's store.
The pitcher, the eye of the covetous, never becomes full: the oyster-shell is not filled with pearls until it is contented.
He (alone) whose garment is rent by a (mighty) love is purged of covetousness and all defect.
Hail, O Love that bringest us good gain - thou that art the physician of all our ills,
The remedy of our pride and vainglory, our Plato and our Galen! — Jalaluddin Rumi

Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-colored pearls in the mouths of the dead. A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned for seven moons over its loss. — Oscar Wilde

Dreaming was easy. I could dream for hours - not thinking, not wondering, not conscious of the passing of time. I could dream at all times and in all places - and this place was made for dreams. I did not awake until Andrew's shadow fell across my knees. "Where are the sand-castles, Jane?" "They were castles in Spain," I replied, smiling up at him. "But the real reason I wanted to come to the sea was pearls. Pearls like sea-water and sunshine." He stooped over the pool and said, "Not real pearls, — D.E. Stevenson

There are many beautiful things in the world around us, but pearls can only be discovered in the depths of the sea; if we wish to posses spiritual pearls we must plunge into the depths, that is, we must pray, we must sink down into the secret depths of contemplation and prayer. Then we shall perceive precious pearls. — Sadhu Sundar Singh