Antarctica Quotes

• If Antarctica were music it would be Mozart. Art, and it would be Michelangelo. Literature, and it would be Shakespeare. And yet it is something even greater; the only place on earth that is still as it should be. May we never tame it.

  Andrew Denton

  Art, Would Be, Literature

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• At a time when it's possible for thirty people to stand on the top of Everest in one day, Antarctica still remains a remote, lonely and desolate continent. A place where it's possible to see the splendours and immensities of the natural world at its most dramatic and, what's more, witness them almost exactly as they were, long, long before human beings ever arrived on the surface of this planet. Long may it remain so.

  David Attenborough

  Lonely, Long, People

  "Life in the Freezer". Documentary, www.imdb.com. (1993 - ).

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• Antarctica is otherworldly, like nothing I've ever seen before. Stark, cold, beautiful desolation.

  Mark Hoppus

  Beautiful, Cold, Desolation

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• Antarctica has this mythic weight. It resides in the collective unconscious of so many people, and it makes this huge impact, just like outer space. It's like going to the moon.

  Jon Krakauer

  Moon, Impact, Collective Unconscious

  "Krakauer in Antarctica", www.pbs.org. February 11, 2003.

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• Ten percent of the big fish still remain. There are still some blue whales. There are still some krill in Antarctica. There are a few oysters in Chesapeake Bay. Half the coral reefs are still in pretty good shape, a jeweled belt around the middle of the planet. There's still time, but not a lot, to turn things around.

  Sylvia Earle

  Lakes, Blue, Oysters

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• The thing that is most beautiful about Antarctica for me is the light. It's like no other light on Earth, because the air is so free of impurities. You get drugged by it, like when you listen to one of your favorite songs. The light there is a mood-enhancing substance.

  Jon Krakauer

  Beautiful, Song, Light

  "Krakauer in Antarctica". Interview with Liesl Clark, www.pbs.org. February 11, 2003.

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• I got a huge knot in my stomach because if Antarctica could talk, it would be saying only one thing: you don't belong here. (277)

  Maria Semple

  Would Be, Stomach, Knots

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• First you fall in love with Antarctica, and then it breaks your heart.

  Kim Stanley

  Falling In Love, Heart, Firsts

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• I am hopeful that Antarctica in its symbolic robe of white will shine forth as a continent of peace as nations working together there in the cause of science set an example of international cooperation.

  Richard E. Byrd

  White, Hopeful, Shining

  Statement made during International Geophysical Year (IGY) operations in 1957, inscribed on the Byrd Memorial at McMurdo Station, Antartica, 1957.

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• Antarctica is a very alien environment, and you can't survive here more than minutes if you're not equipped properly and doing the right thing all the time.

  Jon Krakauer

  Aliens, Environment, Minutes

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• In Antarctica you get to know people so well that in comparison you do not seem to know the people in civilization at all.

  Apsley Cherry-Garrard

  Civilization, People, Wells

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• Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised.

  Apsley Cherry-Garrard

  Time, Way, Exploration

  Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1937). “The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic 1910-1913”, p.5, Library of Alexandria

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• Birds were flying from continent to continent long before we were. They reached the coldest place on Earth, Antarctica, long before we did. They can survive in the hottest of deserts. Some can remain on the wing for years at a time. They can girdle the globe. Now, we have taken over the earth and the sea and the sky, but with skill and care and knowledge, we can ensure that there is still a place on Earth for birds in all their beauty and variety - if we want to... And surely, we should.

  David Attenborough

  Taken, Years, Sea

  "The Life of Birds". Documentary, www.imdb.com. (1998 - ).

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• the answer to every problem involved penguins

  Rick Riordan

  Answers, Penguins, Problem

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• Great God! This is an awful place.

  Robert Falcon Scott

  Witty, Awful

  Diary, 17 Jan. 1912

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• I think part of the appeal of Antarctica is experiencing some sort of power, the forces of the natural world.

  Jon Krakauer

  Thinking, World, Natural

  "Krakauer in Antarctica". Interview with Liesl Clark, www.pbs.org. February 11, 2003.

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• some journalists have described the South Pole as 'hell on earth.' Others refer to my time here as 'an ordeal.' They would be surprised to know how beautiful Antarctica has seemed to me, with its waves of ice in a hundred shades of blue and white, its black winter sky, its ecstatic wheel of stars. They would never understand how the lights of the Dome welcomed me from a distance, or how often I danced and sang and laughed here with my friends. And how I was not afraid.

  Jerri Nielsen

  Beautiful, Stars, Distance

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• Antarctica is one of the most remote and beautiful places on earth. I don't think that everyone should go there. I also think that we need to respect it as a kind of a national park for the planet. It should be you know put in parentheses.

  DJ Spooky

  Beautiful, Thinking, Needs

  "Creating Melodic Landscapes in Antarctica". Big Think Interview, bigthink.com. April 08, 2010.

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• I should kill myself. Things would be better if I did. For me anyway. I don’t know how it would affect global warming or penguins in Antarctica. But it might help me.

  Noah Cicero

  Would Be, Might, Penguins

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• Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for.

  Robert Falcon Scott

  Country, Heart, Rich Countries

  "Message to the Public," Times (London), 11 Feb. 1913

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• 'Red Knot' is a film that I shot in Antarctica almost three years ago on a boat. It was a film that was improvised and it had very interesting circumstances while making the film, obviously. We were on a small boat bobbing around in Antarctica. It was a really remarkable experience.

  Olivia Thirlby

  Years, Interesting, Three

  "Olivia Thirlby Talks Playing a Bad Ass in DREDD, Comic-Con and Her Other Projects, Including NOBODY WALKS, RED KNOT and THE MOVIE". collider.com. July 27, 2012.

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• As a scientist, my attention became totally focused on global warming some 15 years ago by the elegant and powerful measurements of carbon dioxide trapped in ice cores taken as much as 2 miles deep from the great East Antarctica ice sheet.

  John Olver

  Powerful, Taken, Years

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• More people should visit Antarctica, metaphorically speaking, on their own. That is one of the conclusions I have reached, one of my recommendations: explore something, even if it's just a bookshelf. Make a stab in the dark. Read off the beaten path. Your attention is precious. Be careful of other people trying to direct how you dispense it. Confront your own values. Decide what it is you are looking for an then look for it. Perform connoisseurship. We all need to create our own vocabulary of appreciation, or we are trapped by the vocabulary of others.

  Phyllis Rose

  Appreciation, Dark, Vocabulary

  Phyllis Rose (2014). “The Shelf: From LEQ to LES: Adventures in Extreme Reading”, p.215, Macmillan

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• The literature of the emperor penguin is as forbidding, as inaccessible, as the frozen heart of Antarctica itself. Its beauties may be unearthly, but they are not for us.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Heart, Animal, Frozen

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2016). “The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Short Stories of Ursula K. Le Guin”, p.550, Simon and Schuster

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• [In Adelie Land, Antarctica, a howling river of] wind, 50 miles wide, blows off the plateau, month in and month out, at an average velocity of 50 m.p.h. As a source of power this compares favorably with 6,000 tons of water falling every second over Niagara Falls. I will not further anticipate some H. G. Wells of the future who will ring the antarctic with power-producing windmills; but the winds of the Antarctic have to be felt to be believed, and nothing is quite impossible to physicists and engineers.

  Frank Debenham

  Fall, Blow, Average

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