“He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.”

“To a man utterly without a sense of belonging, mere life is all that matters. It is the only reality in an eternity of nothingness, and he clings to it with shameless despair.”

“Khedron was content with the order of things as it was. True, he might upset that order from time to time—but only by a little. He was a critic, not a revolutionary. On the placidly flowing river of time, he wished only to make a few ripples; he shrank from diverting its course.”

“He who despairs is wrong.”

“Play it like something you hear down by the river.”

“He who has never hoped can never despair”

“By anguish which made pale the sun,
I hear Him charge his saints that none
Among his creatures anywhere
Blaspheme against Him with despair,
However darkly days go on.”

“A fresh river in a beautiful meadow
Imagined in his mind
The good Painter, who would some day paint it”

“He who postpones the hour of living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.”

“These days grief seems like walking on a frozen river; most of the time he feels safe enough, but there is always that danger that he will plunge through.”