Quotes about river

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“But still less should the gold of rich men lazily sleep its heavy sleep in the urns and gloom of treasuries. This so weighty metal, when it becomes the associate of a fancy, assumes the most active virtues of the mind. It has her restless nature. Its essence is to vanish. It changes into all things, without being itself changed. It raises blocks of stone, pierces mountains, diverts rivers, opens the gates of fortresses and the most secret hearts; it enchains men; it dresses, it undresses women with an almost miraculous promptitude. It is truly the most abstract agent that exists, next to thought. But thought exchanges and envelops images only, whereas gold incites and promotes the transmutations of all real things into one another; itself remaining incorruptible, and passing untainted through all hands.”

“All I did was sit on the riverbank handing out river water. After I'm gone, I trust you will notice the river.”

“You cannot step twice into the same rivers.”

“I see you standing on the other side.
I don't know how the river got so wide.”

“Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expence of carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level with those of the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that the greatest of all improvements.”

“Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea.”

“Ever-newer waters flow on those who step into the same rivers.”

“TRIFLE
On early morn children were playing at the river’s shore
close to the noon soldiers came out of the blue
by the dim river red played theirs sins”

“A century after the Communist Manifesto was written and thirty years after the Russian Revolution, the revolutionary movement, which has witnessed great victories and suffered profound defeats, seems somehow to have disappeared. Like a river approaching the sea, it has broken up into rivulets, run into swamps and marshes, and finally dried up on the sands.”

“For the greater part of its course the river Drina flows through narrow gorges between steep mountains or through deep ravines with precipitous banks. In a few places only the river banks spread out to form valleys with level or rolling stretches of fertile land suitable for cultivation and settlement on both sides.”

“The Vision of the Image composed of four Metals was given first to Nebuchadnezzar, and then to Daniel in a dream: and Daniel began then to be celebrated for revealing of secrets, Ezek. xxviii. 3. The Vision of the four Beasts, and of the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, was also given to Daniel in a dream. That of the Ram and the He-Goat appeared to him in the day time, when he was by the bank of the river Ulay; and was explained to him by the prophetic Angel Gabriel. It concerns the Prince of the host, and the Prince of Princes: and now in the first year of Darius the Mede over Babylon, the same prophetic Angel appears to Daniel again, and explains to him what is meant by the Son of man, by the Prince of the host, and the Prince of Princes.”

“For we have in Latin only a few small streams and muddy puddles, while they have pure springs and rivers flowing in gold. I see that it is utter madness even to touch with the little finger that branch of theology that deals chiefly with the divine mysteries, unless one is also provided with the equipment of Greek.”

“By the time it came to the edge of the Forest the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, "There is no hurry. We shall get there some day."”

“Admitting to where you are feels simultaneously like pain and like relief. The energy required to resist where you are is exhausting. Admitting to where you are feels like letting yourself float downstream after swimming upstream against river rapids for years.”

“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.”

“Who likes wrinkles?
No one, however remember the laughter, happiness and joy
that created those beautiful marks.
Tell me…would you rather have smooth skin like a cold stone or to see ripples in it from years of happily sitting in a river of running water with the hot sun beating down upon it?”

“It's funny about paths and rivers," he mused. "You see them go by, and suddenly you feel upset and want to be somewhere else--wherever the path or the river is going, perhaps.”

“TWENTY bridges from Tower to Kew -
Wanted to know what the River knew,
Twenty Bridges or twenty-two,
For they were young, and the Thames was old
And this is the tale that River told:”

“The raft is used to cross the river. It isn't to be carried around on your shoulders. The finger which points at the moon isn't the moon itself.”

“If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read "President Can't Swim.”

“All things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit to a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.”

“When a man must be afraid to drink freely from his country's river and streams that country is no longer fit to live in.”

“The dream is like a river, ever changing as it flows and the dreamer just a vessel that must follow where it goes. We must lean from what's behind us never knowing what's in store keeps each day a contant battle just to stay between the shore”

“A book floated down the Amper River.
A boy jumped in, caught up to it, and held
it in his right hand. He grinned. He stood
waist-deep in the icy, Decemberish water.
“How about a kiss, Saumensch?” he said.”

“Time is a river, and books are boats.”

“Fine!" muttered Mogget. "Wet, cold, and full of holes. Another fun day on the river.”

“He shook his head again. 'I just can't figure out why anyone in his right head would bother these Virgin River women.'

'Yeah. Makes no sense.' Jack said.”

“a person is a fluid process, not a fixed and static entity; a flowing river of change, not a block of solid material; a continually changing constellation of potentialities, not a fixed quantity of traits.”

“Run like the river.”

“Never give up; for even rivers someday wash dams away.”

“She was as forthright and simple as the winds that blew over Tara and the yellow river that wound around it.”

“Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”

“I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn't,
So I jumped in and sank.”

“You can wipe your feet on me, twist my motives around all you like, you can dump millstones on my head and drown me in the river, but you can’t get me out of the story. I’m the plot, babe, and don’t ever forget it.”

“Far below ran the silver ribbon of the East River, braceleted by shining bridges, flecked by boats as small as flyspecks, splitting the shining banks of light that were Manhattan and Brooklyn on either side.”

“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.”

“When stuck in the river, it is best to dive and swim to the bank yourself before someone drops a large stone on your chest in an attempt to hoosh you there.”

“When rivers flooded, when fire fell from the sky, what a fine place the library was, the many rooms, the books. With luck, no one found you. How could they!--when you were off to Tanganyika in '98, Cairo in 1812, Florence in 1492!?”

“Sometimes it made her want to put her fist through glass; other times, it made her cry a river.”

“Not everyone wants this conventional little life you’re rowing your boat toward. I like my river of fire. And when it’s time for me to go I fully intend to roll off my one-person dinghy into the flames and be consumed. I'm not afraid.”

“i have to cross the river of extreme awkwardness in order to get to the paradise on the other side.”

“Why sip from a tea cup, when you can drink from the river.”

“The good life of any river may depend on the perception of its music; and the preservation of some music to perceive.”

“I grew up in this town, my poetry was born between the hill and the river, it took its voice from the rain, and like the timber, it steeped itself in the forests.”

“Ya got cigarettes?” she asks. “Yes,” I say,
“I got cigarettes.” “Matches?” she asks.
“Enough to burn Rome.” “Whiskey?”
“Enough whiskey for a Mississippi River
of pain.” “You drunk?” “Not yet.”

“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.”

“I should like the fields tinged with red, the rivers yellow and the trees painted blue. Nature has no imagination.”

“I didn't set fire to the building."
"No, but you did pull it into the river."
"That put the fire out!”

“But you knew there would always be the spring, as you knew the river would flow again after it was frozen. When the cold rains kept on and killed the spring, it was as though a young person had died for no reason.”

“Into the air, over the valleys, under the stars, above a river, a pond, a road, flew Cecy. Invisible as new spring winds, fresh as the breath of clover rising from twilight fields, she flew.”

“Unfinished Poem
I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”

“All the way up the river she's been holding back somehow, waiting. Now you'll both have to wait. I'm not going to disappoint her, Kit. When I take you on board the Witch, it's going to be for keeps.”

“I let it go. It's like swimming against the current. It exhausts you. After a while, whoever you are, you just have to let go, and the river brings you home.”

“… the meaning of my thoughts started to float away from me, like leaves that fall from a tree into a river, I was the tree, the world was the river.”

“We walked along the river with the words streaming behind us like ribbons in the night.”

“When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree by the river of truth, and tell the whole world 'No, You Move.”

“So tomorrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to those who are interested in our fate.”

“Time flows away like the water in the river.”

“America was different. America was a river, roarng along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins.”

“Water seeks its own level. Look at them. The Tigris, the Euphrates, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Yangtze. The world's great rivers. And every one of them finds its way to the ocean.”

“Deep rivers run quiet.”

“There was also a rumor that later in the day, she walked fully clothed into the Amper River and said something very strange.
Something about a kiss.
Something about a Saumensch.
How many times did she have to say goodbye?”

“When you start separating people from their rivers, what have you got? Bureaucracy!”

“Lazarevo drips you into my soul, dawn drop by moonlight drop from the river Kama. When you look for me, look for me there, because that's where I'll be all the days of my life.”

“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”

“A kid might help another kid who fell into a river, and a kid might help another kid search for a lost baseball, but there isn't a kid I've met who will help another kid out of a humiliating situation. We just aren't built that way.”

“when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.”

“He understood how dangerous oaths could be. But Leo didn't care.
"I'm coming back for you, Calypso," he said to the night wind. "I swear it on the River Styx.”

“Life in us is like the water in a river.”

“Insanity makes the rivers flow.”

“Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.”

“Which brings me to the question of why we always 'fall' in love. One falls down steps, off ladders, into rivers and down mountains. If love is so wonderful, why don't we soar in love or climb in love?”

“Mercy," he said,"in a fair fight between near equals, I'll back you every time. It's the demons, vampires, and river devils I worry about, and I'm working on that.”

“Vengeance burns, Torak." said Fin-Kedinn as the river bore him away. "It burns your heart. It makes the pain worse. Dont let that happen to you.”

“Denial is not just a river in Egypt.”

“It is," I said. "And it's not even difficult. But I need your promise on the River Styx." "What?" Dionysus cried. "You don't trust us?" "Someone once told me," I said, looking at Hades, "you should always get a solemn oath." Hades shrugged. "Guilty.”

“I was too busy fighting the river to worry about adjusting my beliefs in accordance to reality.”

“I caught Bast’s arm when she was a few steps from the bank.
“Stay away from the water.”
She frowned. “Carter, I’m a cat. I’m not going for a swim. But if you want to summon a river goddess, you really need to do it at the riverbank.”

“Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river! Dreams! adorations! illumnations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!”

“Dip him in the river who loves water.”

“Life is a journey. Time is a river. The door is ajar”

“I look at my homely sketch. It doesn't need anything. Even through the river in my eyes I can see that. It isn't perfect and that makes it just right.”

“The river that flows in you also flows in me.”

“One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made. That this is still the morning of creation. That mountains, long conceived, are now being born, brought to light by the glaciers, channels traced for coming rivers, basins hollowed for lakes.”

“.. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the 'Momentary' masters of a 'Fraction' of a 'Dot”

“I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.”

“I was having a mildly paranoid day, mostly due to the fact that the mad priest lady from over the river had taken to nailing weasels to my front door again.”

“A good river is nature's life work in song.”

“Don’t move. I like this ledge of loose diamonds
waiting to be spilled into the night.
Let’s shine awhile without touching.
Sensuality is, after all, a river that is always waiting.”

“I had been afraid of the awful presence of the river, which was the soul of the river, but through her [Ultima] I learned that my spirit shared in the spirit of all things.”

“Suicide Note:
The calm,
Cool face of the river
Asked me for a kiss.
-Langston Hughes”

“You will find a way to live without me. You will find a way to live for both of us,' Alexander said to Tatiana as the swelling Kama River flowed from the Ural Mountains through a pine village named Lazarevo, once when they were in love, and young.”

“Hazel squinted. "How far?"
"Just over the river and through the woods."
Percy raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? To Grandmother's house we go?"
Frank cleared his throat. "Yeah, anyway.”

“Four thousand years ago, we, the people of the Indus River basin, had cities that were laid out on grids and boasted underground sewers, while the ancestors of those who would invade and colonize America were illiterate barbarians.”

“What I do know is that if we are born again, I will meet you in another life, and if there is a river, you will wait on the shores for me to come to you, so that we can cross together.”

“I could fall in love with a cruel desert that kills without passion, a canyon full of scorpions, one thousand blinding arctic storms, a century sealed in a cave, a river of molten salt flowing down my throat. But never with you.”

“Alcohol is the river we sit on the banks of, contemplating. Sometimes we watch ourselves float past, sometimes we watch ourselves sink.”

“I love you because all the loves in the world are like different rivers flowing into the same lake where they meet and are transformed into a single love that becomes rain and blesses the earth.”

“You tried to drink the East River,"Magnus said, and Alec saw, as if for the first time, that Magnus's clothes were soaking wet too, sticking to his body like a dark second skin.”