The 100 best diving quotes

When watching a movie, or browsing Social Media channels, we all enjoy a good quote or saying that makes us feel emotional or reflect our feelings.

And if it’s a quote about our scuba diving passion, it’s especially cool!

In this post, you will find the 100 best diving quotes for scuba divers, freedivers, and ocean lovers.

From scuba diving quotes for Instagram, funny diving quotes, and inspirational scuba diving phrases, to anything else worth sharing and remembering!

Enjoy!

Best scuba diving quotes

The best general scuba diving quotes that we enjoy!

Take only pictures, kill only time, leave only bubbles, keep the memories.

2. Most of the problems in scuba diving come from ourselves.
   – Jim Crockett
3. It’s not the depths we conquer, but ourselves.
   – After Edmund Hillary
4. Diving is an investment of time and money but the rewards can be life-changing, literally.
   – Andi Cummings
5. I love all the unique things you see on each dive. Millions of little aquatic soap operas…between all the creatures.
   – Kirsten Hubbard
6. No matter how much you travel, if you don’t dive, you cannot say you’ve seen the world.
   – Unknown
7. Scuba diving shows the human mind what it is truly like to move around in a fully 3-dimensional world. A world that once your head sinks below the surface the thoughts of society vanish and tranquility begins.
   – Matthew Schade
8. 75% of the Earth is water. Divers live on a much bigger planet.
   – Unknown
9. Scuba diving is very much a black-and-white world in terms of the laws and rules one must abide by.
   – Carlos Eyles
10. Why is it that scuba divers and surfers are some of the strongest advocates of ocean conservation? Because they’ve spent time in and around the ocean, and they’ve personally seen the beauty, the fragility, and even the degradation of our planet’s blue heart.
    – Sylvia Earle
11. I can mention many moments that were unforgettable and revelatory. But the most single revelatory three minutes was the first time I put on scuba gear and dived on a coral reef. It’s just the unbelievable fact that you can move in three dimensions.
    – David Attenborough

12. For most people, this is as close to being an astronaut, as you’ll ever get. It’s leaving planet Earth behind and entering an alien world.
    – Mary Frances Emmons
13. Everyone loves to fly and flying underwater is better than flying in air because there are things around you.
    – Graham Hawkes
14. Your worst day stuck on the surface wishing you could get underwater is better than your best day stuck underwater wishing you could get on the surface
    Anonymous
15. In a few short years, you might have to become a scuba diver and go hundreds of feet underwater – It will be the last refuge of pure aura and power on our planet, the oceans’ depths.
    Frederick Lenz

Dive with friends, not strangers.

The initial Social Diving slogan. 😃

17. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying looking at the surface of the ocean itself, except that when you finally see what goes on underwater, you realized that you’ve been missing the whole point of the ocean.
    – Dave Barry
18. Scuba diving is itself a hazardous sport. To do it without any training is tantamount to playing Russian roulette with a loaded revolver.
    Robert F. Burgess, The Cave Divers
19. There are bold divers and old divers, but there are no old bold divers.
    attributed to Tom Mix
20. Diving is optional, surfacing is mandatory.
21. For some reason, while diving, the stress stays at the surface.

If you want more interesting scuba diving quotes, check out the best books for scuba divers and you will find plenty!

Best scuba diving quotes for Instagram

Want to share some inspirational scuba diving quotes on Instagram? The following diving quotes are short and sweet and definitely worth a share on social media.

And make sure to follow Social Diving on Instagram @socialdivingofficial!

We dive not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.

23. Give me coffee to change the things I can and the ocean to accept the things I can’t.
24. Do you need to think? Go diving and you’ll find peace and quiet.
25. Don’t ask me why I dive…ask yourself why you don’t.

Not a diver, yet? Read my New to Diving guide or take your scuba diving beginner course with us!

26. Give me coffee to change the things I can and the ocean to accept the things I can’t.
27. For others, there is therapy. For me, there is scuba diving.
28. Do you need to think? Go diving and you’ll find peace and quiet.
29. Don’t ask me why I dive…ask yourself why you don’t.
30. Eat – dive – sleep – repeat
31. Money can’t buy happiness but it can buy dive gear which is pretty much the same thing.

Speaking of dive gear, go check out our beginner’s guide to buying scuba gear!

Alternatively, check out all the scuba gear articles on our site or browse our reviews.

For others, there is therapy. For me, there is scuba diving.

37. Some just eat it. Some dive a lot to see it alive.
38. The best part about doing dangerous things is living to tell the story.
39. Don’t hesitate, we are all made of water.
40. Get out of your comfort zone and discover the ocean.
41. Happiness can be measured in bars.
42. Life is a beach and then you dive.
43. If scuba diving had no risk, there would be a lot more fools underwater.

Don’t be a fool, take one of our diving courses and become a better diver!

44. Every girl loves when a boy softly whispers in her ear those three magic words: Time to dive!
45. There is no angry way to say bubbles.
46. It’s always dive o’clock somewhere.

Best Jacques Yves Cousteau quotes

Every scuba diver and many ocean lovers and explorers out there know the famous Jacques Yves Cousteau or grew up with his tales of the underwater world.

Here are some of the best Jacques Yves Cousteau quotes about diving and the sea.

The best way to observe a fish is to become a fish.

48. The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.
49. Diving for me is like a loving kiss.
50. 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.

If you want to read more quotes or find more about his life, have a look at this Cousteau biography!

Best Ocean Quotes

The best diving quotes for ocean lovers and sea addicts!

It’s another world what the sea gives us. It’s a paradise.

Tito Ramirez Rivas

52. Every time you dive, you hope you’ll see something new – some new species. Sometimes the ocean gives you a gift, sometimes it doesn’t.
    – James Cameron

If you want to see James Cameron and some of his diving adventures, check out the best scuba diving movies in 2024 we compiled!

53. On the surface of the ocean, men wage war and destroy each other; but down here, just a few feet beneath the surface, there is a calm and peace, unmolested by man.
    – Jules Verne, Twenty thousand leagues under the sea

53. The cure for anything is saltwater: sweat, tears, or the sea.
    – Isak Dinesen
54. Don’t wait any longer. Dive in the ocean, Leave and let the sea be you.
    – Rumi
55. We need to respect the oceans and take care of them as if our lives depended on it. Because they do.
    – Sylvia Earle
56. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch – we are going back from whence we came.
    – John F Kennedy
57. The sea is the only embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence.
    – Jules Verne
58. Every time I slip into the ocean, it’s like going home.
    – Sylvia Earle
59. It’s out there at sea that you are really yourself.
    – Vito Dumas

Funny diving quotes

The best funny diving quotes to make you and your dive buddies laugh.

Be nice to divers. We know places where nobody will find you.

Unknown

62. Diving is like sex. – The first time you try you are nervous but it’s still the best thing you’ve ever tried. The more you do it, the better it gets. As you do it with more people, you learn new techniques. With experience, you can do it longer and deeper…If you enjoy sex, you’ll love diving.
    – Unknown
63. Feel free to pee in your rental wetsuit…everyone else has…
64. If anything goes wrong underwater, relax, take a deep breath, and think it through. You have the rest of your life to solve the problem.
65. Divers are men of strength, with healthy organs. Divers are men of strong mind, intelligent and with impeccable morality.
    (Translated from German: “Taucher sind Männer großer Muskelkraft, mit gesunden Organen. Taucher sind Männer hoher geistiger Kraft, von Verstand und einwandfreier Moral“)
    – Hermann Stelznar, Tauchtechnik 1931
66. Friends don’t let friends buy jacket-style BCDs
67. Friends don’t let friends buy split fins.

Instead, friends show friends the Social Diving guide to buying scuba diving fins so they pick the right ones!

68. Shouldn’t dive this morning, too much blood in the alcohol system…
    – Unknown diver on liveaboard
69. You don’t have to outswim the shark, you just have to outswim your buddy.
70. The visibility is great if you get right up close to what you want to see.
71. You should always dive with a buddy…if you have an equipment problem buddy can help….if you run out of air buddy can help….if there is a shark attack your odds are now 50-50 instead of 100%
72. Nitrogen Narcosis is for Christmas, Oxygen Toxicity is for Life
73. I dress in black rubber, hang metal clips all over my body, and pee on myself. I’m a commercial diver.
    A commercial diver
74. If you close your eyes the sharks will disappear.
75. Divers are some of the most calm, composed and stress-free people I know. I’m just not sure whether it’s calming effect of the sea or brain damage from lack of oxygen…
    Unknown Divemaster
76. The instructor carries the responsibility, the students the tanks.
    Julius Launhardt, during every Social Diving diving course

77. The dive went great, then they entered the water.
78. To scuba dive or not to scuba dive. What a stupid question!
79. Life stages: Crawl, walk, dive.
80. Why do scuba divers fall backward off a boat? Because if they fell forwards they’d still be in the boat.
    Mark Hoppus
81. Hooking on scuba gear and blindly diving into zombie-infested water is a wonderful way to mix the two childhood terrors of being eaten and drowning.
    Max Brooks, The Zombie Survival Guide
82. There are two types of divers: Those who pee in their wetsuit, and those who lie about it.
    Every instructor. Always.
83. Remember when scuba diving was dangerous and having sex was fun?
84. Never assume an unexploded goat is evidence of a good decompression profile.
    Mike Edmonston
85. Frankly, I’d suck a fart out of a donkey’s ass if that’s what it took to make it to the surface alive
    Bob (Grateful Diver)
86. It’s not the agency, it’s the instructor!
    Multiple commenters in discussion on “best diving agency“
87. The Visibility is as far as you can see.
88. You’re too old to dive when they put you in a box. Even then, you’re not too old, you’re just incapable.
    K Barrick

And to really show you this is true, read up on scuba diving age restrictions (and the lack thereof).

89. What happens in your wetsuit, stays in your wetsuit.
90. I hate diving in the rain…. you get wet!
91. The hardest part about diving in a drysuit is remembering not to pee.
    Unknown instructor
92. Think how deep the oceans would be if they didn’t have sponges.
93. In my other life, I was a fish. So I scuba dive to visit relatives.
94. I love scuba diving because for one hour, everyone just shuts the f*** up.
    – Every scuba diving instructor when asked what makes the job so great. 😄

Freediving Quotes

Last but not least, I don’t want to leave out freediving quotes to share on Instagram and Pinterest. After all, the entire experience of diving on breath-hold makes for some intense moments.

The scuba diver dives to look around. The freediver dives to look inside.

Umberto Pelizzari

96. Freediving is not only a sport, it’s a way to understand who we are.
    Natalia Molchanova
97. Freediving is about silence…the silence that comes from within.
    Jacques Mayol
98. Underwater I hear the water coming to my body, I hear the sunlight penetrating the water.
    James Nestor, Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us About Ourselves
99. If you haven’t had a problem down there, it just means that you haven’t dived enough times.
    Yasemin Dalkilic
100. Most sports require a ball. Freediving requires two.

Wrap-Up

And that’s it. These are the 100 best scuba diving quotes in 2024. Go and share them, and this list, with your diving friends and on Social Media.

Also, make sure to follow us on Instagram @socialdivingofficial and our Social Diving Facebook page @socialdivingofficial!

Do you know any other cool or inspirational diving quotes? Share them in the comments and I will add them!

Oh, and if you think I forgot to quote the right person, let me know, too.

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Always dive with friends and happy bubbles. 😃

Cheers

Julius