
Variant: Fruitful earth drinks up the rain, Trees from earth drink that again; The sea too drinks the air, the sun Drinks the sea, and him the moon. Is it reason, then, do ye think, That I should thirst when all else drink?
Source: Odes, 21.
By the Sea; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919); Old and New, Volume 5 (1872), p. 169.
Variant: Fruitful earth drinks up the rain, Trees from earth drink that again; The sea too drinks the air, the sun Drinks the sea, and him the moon. Is it reason, then, do ye think, That I should thirst when all else drink?
Source: Odes, 21.
The Use of Life (1894), ch. IV: Recreation
“ALL Rivers go to the Sea, but none return from it.”
A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind (1707)
Context: ALL Rivers go to the Sea, but none return from it. Xerxes wept when he beheld his Army, to consider that in less than a Hundred Years they would be all Dead. Anacreon was' Choakt with a Grape-stone, and violent Joy Kills as well as violent Grief. There is nothing in this World constant but Inconstancy; yet Plato thought that if Virtue would appear to the World in her own native Dress, all Men would be Enamoured with her. But now since Interest governs the World, and Men neglect the Golden Mean, Jupiter himself, if he came on the Earth would be Despised, unless it were as he did to Danae in a Golden Shower. For Men nowadays Worship the Rising Sun, and not the Setting.
“Why sip from a tea cup, when you can drink from the river.”
Source: L.A. Story and Roxanne: Screenplays
Variant: Love is all right for those who can handle the psychic overload. It’s like trying to carry a full garbage can on your back over a rushing river of piss.
Source: Women