Robert Ballard Quotes

Author Image

Robert Ballard

Profession : Scientist

Birth : June 30, 1942

So, you know, I think the age of exploration is just beginning, not ending, on our planet.

Robert Ballard

I am an underwater explorer, not a treasure hunter.

Robert Ballard

If you compare NASA's annual budget to explore the heavens, that one year budget would fund NOAA's budget to explore the oceans for 1,600 years.

Robert Ballard

The Titanic will protect itself.

Robert Ballard

The body is sort of a pain. It has to go to the bathroom. It has to be comfortable. But the spirit is indestructible. It can move at the speed of light.

Robert Ballard

You don't let a historic site rot.

Robert Ballard

There's probably more history now preserved underwater than in all the museums of the world combined. And there's no law governing that history. It's finders keepers.

Robert Ballard

You don't go to Gettysburg with a shovel, you don't take belt buckles off the Arizona.

Robert Ballard

Almost a quarter of our planet is a single mountain range and we didn't enter it until after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin went to the moon. So we went to the moon, played golf up there, before we went to the largest feature on our own planet.

Robert Ballard

Forever may it remain that way. And may God bless these now-found souls.

Robert Ballard

I'm a geophysicist and all my earth science books when I was a student, I had to give the wrong answer to get an A. We used to ridicule continental drift. It was something we laughed at. We learned of Marshall Kay's geosynclinal cycle, which is a bunch of crap.

Robert Ballard

Don't confuse facts with reality.

Robert Ballard

It is a quiet and peaceful place - and a fitting place for the remains of this greatest of sea tragedies to rest.

Robert Ballard

Fifty percent of our country that we own, have all legal jurisdiction, have all rights to do whatever we want, lies beneath the sea and we have better maps of Mars than that 50 percent.

Robert Ballard

Most of the southern hemisphere is unexplored. We had more exploration ships down there during Captain Cook's time than now. It's amazing.

Robert Ballard

I believe in just enriching the economy. And we're leaving so much on the table, 72 percent of the planet.

Robert Ballard

There are more active volcanoes beneath the sea than on land by two orders of magnitude.

Robert Ballard

There's a long list of technologies that have now made it possible to carry out very precise search efforts in the deep sea.

Robert Ballard

Well, when I was a kid, I grew up in San Diego next to the ocean. The ocean was my friend - my best friend.

Robert Ballard

I mean, technology is amoral. It has no morality.

Robert Ballard