“When flowing cups pass swiftly round
With no allaying Thames.”

“I wander lonely streets
behind where the old Thames does flow
And in every face I meet
reminds me of what I have run for”

Richard Ashcroft (1971) English singer-songwriter

“Yet sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up,
He felt with spirit so profound.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

“water is fearless, you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a teapot it becomes the teapot, water can flow drip, creap, or crash!”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

“Idleness makes hours pass slowly and years swiftly. Activity makes the hours short and the years long.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

“The cup goes round:
And who so artful as to put it by!
'T is long since Death had the majority.”

Robert Blair The Grave

“Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe,
Returning home on summer-nights, have met
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe,
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet,
As the punt’s rope chops round.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

“Death, go somewhere, get lost! I’m not done as yet –
Joy still flows from the amphora of colors into my cupped hands.”

Ghani Khan (1914–1996) Pakistani poet

“Blood is thicker than water, my mother had always said when I was growing up, a sentiment I’d often disputed. But it turned out that it didn’t matter whether she was right or wrong. They both flowed out of my cupped palms.”

Cheryl Strayed book Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“How swiftly the strained honey
of afternoon light
flows into darkness

and the closed bud shrugs off
its special mystery
in order to break into blossom:

as if what exists, exists
so that it can be lost
and become precious”

Lisel Mueller (1924) German poet