Turtles Quotes

“Dill said striking a match under a turtle was hateful.
"Ain't hateful, just persuades him- 's not like you'd chunk him in the fire," Jem growled.
"How do you know a match don't hurt him?"
"Turtles can't feel , stupid," said Jem.
"Were you ever a turtle, huh?”
― Harper Lee

“Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.”
― Alex Haley

“A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.” The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?” “You’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “But it’s turtles all the way down!”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

“Warren Buffett is one of the best learning machines on this earth. The turtles which outrun the hares are learning machines. If you stop learning in this world, the world rushes right by you.”
― Lucas Remmerswaal, 13 Habits.com The tale of Tortoise Buffett and Trader Hare: Inspired by Warren Buffett

“People have been on earth in our present form for only about 100,000 years, and in so many ways we’re still ironing out our kinks. These turtles we’ve been traveling with, they outrank us in longevity, having earned three more zeros than we. They’ve got one hundred million years of success on their resume, and they’ve learned something about how to survive in the world. And this, I think, is part of it: they have settled upon peaceful career paths, with a stable rhythm. If humans could survive another one hundred million years, I expect we would no longer find ourselves riding bulls. It’s not so much that I think animals have rights; it’s more that I believe humans have hearts and minds- though I’ve yet to see consistent, convincing proof of either. Turtles may seem to lack sense, but they don’t do senseless things. They’re not terribly energetic, yet they do not waste energy… turtles cannot consider what might happen yet nothing turtles do threatens anyone’s future. Turtles don’t think about the next generation, but they risk and provide all they can to ensure that there will be one. Meanwhile, we profess to love our own offspring above all else, yet above all else it is they from whom we daily steal. We cannot learn to be more like turtles, but from turtles we could learn to be more human. That is the wisdom carried within one hundred million years of survival. What turtles could learn from us, I can’t quite imagine.”
― Carl Safina, Voyage of the Turtle: In Pursuit of the Earth's Last Dinosaur

“The lesson of every extinction, says the Smithsonian’s Doug Erwin, is that we can’t predict what the world will be 5 million years later by looking at the survivors.

"There will be plenty of surprises. Let’s face it: who would’ve predicted the existence of turtles? Who would ever have imagined that an organism would essentially turn itself inside out, pulling its shoulder girdle inside its ribs to form a carapace? If turtles didn’t exist, no vertebrate biologist would’ve suggested that anything would do that: he’d have been laughed out of town. The only real prediction you can make is that life will go on. And that it will be interesting.”
― Alan Weisman, The World Without Us

“At the pet store he picked out two painted turtles, each about as big around as a mayonnaise-jar lid. He bought them a large kidney shaped dish that had its own little island, a plastic palm tree, some aquatic plants, and a snail. The snail, presumably, to bolster the self-esteem of the turtles: "You think we're slow? Look at that guy." To store up the snail's morale in the same way, there was a rock.”
― Christopher Moore

“It’s turtles all the way down.”
― Lev Grossman, The Magician's Land

“I am going where turtles win
I am going
where conmen puke and die
Down the sad esplanades
of the official world.”
― Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A Coney Island of the Mind

“Human beings can learn valuable lessons in conservation of necessary personal resources for accomplishing the fundamental tenants of life by observing a judiciously paced turtle determinedly and stealthily traversing the world.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“All stories are incomplete. Yet in order to construct a viable identity for myself and give meaning to my life, I don’t really need a complete story devoid of blind spots and internal contradictions. To give meaning to my life, a story needs to satisfy just two conditions: first, it must give me some role to play. A New Guinean tribesman is unlikely to believe in Zionism or in Serbian nationalism, because these stories don’t care at all about New Guinea and its people. Like movie stars, humans like only those scripts that reserve an important role for them.
Second, whereas a good story need not extend to infinity, it must extend beyond my horizons. The story provides me with an identity and gives meaning to my life by embedding me within something bigger than myself. But there is always a danger that I might start wondering what gives meaning to that ‘something bigger’. If the meaning of my life is to help the proletariat or the Polish nation, what exactly gives meaning to the proletariat or to the Polish nation? There is a story of a man who claimed that the world is kept in place by resting on the back of a huge elephant. When asked what the elephant stands on, he replied “that it stands on the back of a large turtle. And the turtle? On the back of an even bigger turtle. And that bigger turtle? The man snapped and said: ‘Don’t bother about it. From there onwards it’s turtles all the way down.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

“A glowing green traced the movements of our limbs below the gentle surf. I imagined a scaly, bug-eyed eel with razor-sharp teeth had come from the deep to hunt for a late-night meal before realizing it was a luminescent algae emitting a subtle glow with each tread of the water. At one point, we returned to the beach to rest and came across a nest of hatching turtles making their first voyage into the water. We watched the sun gradually peek over the horizon, and I realized in this moment that I had your mother's deepest trust. Miles away from her comfort zone, she was willing to walk with me and explore the depth of a world I had grown to love. I, in turn, would need to trust her to the utmost as I stepped deeper into her world of stand-up comedy.”
― Ali Wong, Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life

“To this day, I am embarrassed to admit that I still deeply struggle with get-yo-ass-up syndrome. At least back then, my dad was still down to be my human alarm clock. When all other tactics failed to get the job done- tickling me, pulling the covers off of my virtually comatose body, shouting- my dad made up a wake-up song that he sang to me nearly every morning for sixteen years: "Lainey Flainey, give me your answer true. I'm half crazy over the likes of you." He'd saunter into my room and sit on the edge of my bed, tap, tap, tapping my tiny body to the beat until I finally woke up. Looking back, it was the most loving, patient act of parenting in the universe. Of course, at the time, it was simply annoying as hell. "And we're off like a herd of turtles!" he'd say. Every. Single. Day.”
― Elaine Welteroth, More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are

“A turtle without a shell is a very strange thing. Even with shells, turtles are very strange things, with their miniature elephant's feet, parrot's beak and ludicrous tail.”
― Albert Sánchez Piñol, Pandora in the Congo

“I don't mind running with turtles.
From book: stuff I think about
By Sondra Faye”
― Sondra Faye

“There must be more than this, Sarah Boyle thinks, from time to time. What could one do to justify one's passage? Or less ambitiously, to change, even in the motion of the smallest mote, the course and circulation of the world? Sometimes Sarah's dreams are of heroic girth, a new symphony using laboratories of machinery and all invented instruments, at once giant in scope and intelligible to all, to heal the bloody breach; a series of paintings which would transfigure and astonish and calm the frenzied art world in its panting race; a new novel that would refurbish language. Sometimes she considers the mystical, the streaky and random, and it seems that one change, no matter how small, would be enough. Turtles are supposed to live for many years. To carve a name, date and perhaps a word of hope upon a turtle's shell, then set him free to wend the world, surely this one act might cancel out absurdity?”
― Pamela Zoline, The Heat Death of the Universe and Other Stories

“...a turtle’s heart will beat for hours after he has been cut up and
butchered. But the old man thought, I have such a heart too and my feet and
hands are like theirs.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea

“Love makes even a turtle smile.”
― Henrietta Newton Martin

“I've often wondered, 'Who am I to disturb the natural order of things?' Then God reminded me that I am a part of the natural order of things. When I am true to my heart, true to myself, I am part of Her ebb and flow. I am part of Her great Sea.”
― Tom Grasso

“It's as if the light changes color when Maraia and Madam Maya are together. I heard them singing this afternoon. Maraia's high-pitched voice, and Madam Maya's with deeper and looser tones. They sat on the floor with two brown and green pieces of fabric between them, which they had folded into the shape of small animals with bodies and heads. "We sing for the turtles," Maraia said. She must have told Madam Maya about the princesses Tinaicaboga and Raudalice, who were transformed into turtles when they were kidnapped by fishermen from a village on Kadavu. They found a way to escape, but they had to go on living as sea turtles in the bay off the island.
Maraia knew the song as well, the one the women in the princesses' village sing to them from the cliffs on the beach.

The women of Namuana are dressed for grief
They carry their holy clubs, decorated in strange patterns
Raudalice, come up and show yourself to us!
Tinaicaboga, come up and show yourself to us!

When the women sing, the giant turtles come up to the surface and listen.”
― Anne Østby, Pieces of Happiness

“The turtles came to a halt, and before any of us could say another word, they swiftly joined themselves together, the sides of their shells connecting like Legos with a loud click.

“What are they doing?!”

"Maybe they’re turning into turbo turtles,” Alana said.

“Or ninja turtles,” Hondo added, nodding frantically.”
― J.C. Cervantes, The Shadow Crosser

“Never give up on a turtle. Because turtles never give up.”
― Sy Montgomery, Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell

“The rhythmic songs of crickets and grey tree frogs sound to me like little clocks. But instead of ticking time away-time going, going, gone-they seem to be accumulating time, season after season of mystery, wisdom, and wonder. With each trill and chirp and throb, these voices are keeping turtle time, renewing the covenants that keep the world alive, and offering us the gift of eternity.”
― Sy Montgomery, Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell

“Odvedli jsme tak dobrou práci s vyprávěním příběhů o zániku a pádu, že si mnozí z nás dovedou velice snadno představit budoucí oceán s vybělenými útesy, želvy zadušené plastem, splaškové skvrny, hejna medúz a města duchů v místech někdejších rybářských vesnic plných života. Stejně důležité odteď budou naše příběhy o zlepšeních, naději a hrdinech, neboť nám ukážou, kdo jsme a kým máme ještě čas se stát.”
― David Attenborough, Ocean: Earth’s Last Wilderness