“Them folks who are sudden, aint apt tew be solid; lively streams are alwus shallow.”

— Josh Billings

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

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Josh Billings 91

American humorist 1818–1885

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“Sometimes I think it aint none of us pure crazy and aint none of us pure sane until the balance of us talks him that-a-way. It's like it aint so much what a fellow does, but it's the way the majority of folks is looking at him when he does it.”

William Faulkner book As I Lay Dying

As I Lay Dying (1930)

“Our passions are most like to floods and streams;
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

Sir Walter Raleigh to the Queen (published 1655); alternately reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919) as:
"Passions are likened best to floods and streams:
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb"
and titled The Silent Lover. Compare: "Altissima quæque flumina minimo sono labi", (translated: "The deepest rivers flow with the least sound"), Q. Curtius, vii. 4. 13. "Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep", William Shakespeare, 2 Henry VI. act iii. sc. i.

“The grate desire ov mi life iz tew amuze sumboddy. I had rather be able to set the multiplikashun table tew sum lively tune than tew hav bin the author ov it.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

“I kno plenty ov folks who are so kondem kontrary, that if they should fall into the river, they would insist uopon floating up stream.”

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist

Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

“Below the surface stream, shallow and light,
Of what we say and feel — below the stream,
As light, of what we think we feel, there flows
With noiseless current, strong, obscure and deep,
The central stream of what we feel indeed.”

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

"St. Paul and Protestantism" (1870)

“The perpetual stream of human nature is formed into ever-changing shallows, eddies, falls and pools by the land over which it passes.”

Mary Renault book The Mask of Apollo

The Mask of Apollo (1966)
Context: Christianity and Islam have changed irrevocably the moral reflexes of the world. The philosopher Herakleitos said with profound truth that you cannot step twice into the same river. The perpetual stream of human nature is formed into ever-changing shallows, eddies, falls and pools by the land over which it passes. Perhaps the only real value of history lies in considering this endlessly varied play between the essence and the accidents.