“In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column;
In the pentameter aye falling in melody back.”

— Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"The Ovidian Elegiac Metre" (translated from Schiller) (1799)

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge 220

English poet, literary critic and philosopher 1772–1834

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“The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises.”

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psychoanalysis

As quoted in his obituary, in the New York Times, 24 September, 1939
Attributed from posthumous publications

“Out of infinite longings rise
finite deeds like weak fountains,
falling back just in time and trembling.
And yet, what otherwise remains silent,
our happy energies—show themselves
in these dancing tears.”

Rainer Maria Rilke book The Book of Images

Aus unendlichen Sehnsüchten steigen
endliche Taten wie schwache Fontänen,
die sich zeitig und zitternd neigen.
Aber, die sich uns sonst verschweigen,
unsere fröhlichen Kräfte—zeigen
sich in diesen tanzenden Tränen.
Initiale (Initial) (as translated by Cliff Crego)
Das Buch der Bilder (The Book of Images) (1902)

“From the prevalent state of the mind, actions proceed, as water rises from a fountain.”

Horace Mann (1796–1859) American politician

The Common School Journal Vol. IX, No. 12 (15 June 1847), p. 181
Context: Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals. As childhood advances to manhood, the transition from bad manners to bad morals is almost imperceptible. Vulgar and obscene forms of speech keep vulgar and obscene objects before the mind, engender impure images in the imagination, and make unlawful desires prurient. From the prevalent state of the mind, actions proceed, as water rises from a fountain.