Quotes about river
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“Time, flowing like a river
Time, beckoning me
Who knows when we shall meet again
If ever
But time
Keeps flowing like a river
To the sea”

Alan Parsons (1948) audio engineer, musician, and record producer from England

"Time", from the album The Turn Of A Friendly Card. (Written by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson.)
Quotes from songs

Time, Sea

“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.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Socrates, pp. 147–8
Eupalinos ou l'architecte (1921)

Women, Men, Secret, Mountain

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

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Source: Anthony De Mello : Writings (1999), p. 82

Water

“You cannot step twice into the same rivers.”

Heraclitus (-535) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

ποταμῷ γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐμβῆναι δὶς τῷ αὐτῷ
Fragment 91
Plutarch, On the EI at Delphi
Numbered fragments
Variant: 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.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

" Tower Of Song http://www.lyricsfreak.com/l/leonard+cohen/tower+of+song_20082815.html" - Tower of Song with U2, Video http://vimeo.com/13286028 I'm Your Man (1988) Context: p>I see you standing on the other side. I don't know how the river got so wide. I loved you, baby, way back when. And all the bridges are burning that We might have crossed and I feel so close to everything that we've lost. We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again.Now I bid You farewell, I don't when I'll be back. They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track. But you'll be hearing from me, baby, long after I'm gone. I'll speaking to you sweetly From a window in the Tower Of Song</p

“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.”

Adam Smith (1723–1790) Scottish moral philosopher and political economist

Source: The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book I, Chapter XI, Part I, p. 174.

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

Mikhail Lermontov book A Hero of Our Time

A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)

Way, Sea

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

Heraclitus (-535) pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

Fragment 12
Numbered fragments

Water

“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”

Marcin Malek (1975) Polish writer

Call me an idiot (2012), pages 41, the whole piece

Children

“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.”

Cornelius Castoriadis (1922–1997) Greek-French philosopher

Socialism or Barbarism

Sea, Victory, Suffering

“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.”

Ivo Andrič book The Bridge on the Drina

Source: The Bridge on the Drina (1945), Ch. 1, first lines

Mountain, Parting

“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.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

The Prophecy of the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven relates to the second coming of Christ; that of the Prince of the host relates to his first coming: and this Prophecy of the Messiah, in explaining them, relates to both comings, and assigns the times thereof.
Vol. I, Ch. 10: Of the Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)

Time, Dreams, Secret, Appearance

“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.”

Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536) Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

As quoted in Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World (2017) by By Eric Metaxas, p. 85

Madness, Spring

“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."”

A.A. Milne book The House at Pooh Corner

Source: The House at Pooh Corner (1928), Chapter Six.

Time

“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.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Pain, Feeling

“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.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Time, Water

“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?”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Happiness, Water, Sun, Beauty

“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.”

Tove Jansson book Comet in Moominland

Source: Comet in Moominland

Feeling

“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:”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

“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.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation

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

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

Water, Reading

“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.”

Marcus Aurelius book Meditations

Source: Meditations

Life, Dreams

“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.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

Drink, Country

“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”

Garth Brooks (1962) American country music artist

The River, written by Victoria Shaw and G. Brooks.
Song lyrics, Ropin' the Wind (1991)
Context: You know a dream is like a river,
Ever changin' as it flows.
And a dreamer's just a vessel
That must follow where it goes.
Trying to learn from what's behind you,
And never knowing what's in store
Makes each day a constant battle
Just to stay between the shores... andI will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry.
Like a bird upon the wind,
These waters are my sky.
I'll never reach my destination
If I never try.
So I will sail my vessel
'Til the river runs dry.

Dreams, Change

“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.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Books, Boy, Kiss, Water

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

Dan Brown (1964) American author

Books, Time

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

Garth Nix book Abhorsen

Source: Lirael

“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.”

Robyn Carr American writer

Source: Shelter Mountain

Women, Sense

“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.”

Carl R. Rogers (1902–1987) American psychologist

Source: On Becoming a Person: A Therapist's View of Psychotherapy

Change, Personality

“Run like the river.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

Source: Gregor the Overlander Box Set

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

Arthur Golden (1956) American novelist

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

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

“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.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

“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.”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

Thinking

“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.”

Margaret Atwood book Good Bones

Source: Good Bones

Motivation, Forgetting

“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.”

Cassandra Clare (1973) American author

Light

“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.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Feeling, Time

“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.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

“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!?”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Books

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

Jodi Picoult Salem Falls

Source: Salem Falls

Time, Cry

“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.”

Zadie Smith book NW

Source: NW

Life, Time, Personality

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

David Levithan book Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Source: Will Grayson, Will Grayson

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

Steve Martin (1945) American actor, comedian, musician, author, playwright, and producer

Source: L.A. Story and Roxanne: Screenplays

Drink, Tea

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

Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American writer and scientist

Life, Music, Dependency

“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.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

“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.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Pain

“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.”

Charles Bukowski book Women

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

Love

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

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet

Imagination, Nature, Tree, Painting

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

Anthony Horowitz Alex Rider

Source: Snakehead

“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.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast

Spring, Personality

“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.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

Star, Spring

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

John O'Donohue (1956–2008) Irish writer, priest and philosopher

Love

“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.”

Elizabeth George Speare book The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Source: The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Disappointment, Way, Waiting

“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.”

Joanne Harris book Five Quarters of the Orange

Source: Five Quarters of the Orange

Moving On, 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.”

Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

World, Tree

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

Sue Monk Kidd book The Secret Life of Bees

Source: The Secret Life of Bees (2002)

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.”

J. Michael Straczynski (1954) American writer and television producer

Truth, World, Tree

“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.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book The Lost World

Source: The Lost World

Fate

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

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Water, Time

“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.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Water, Memory, Past

“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.”

Alison McGhee (1960) American novelist

Source: All Rivers Flow To The Sea

World, Way, Water

“Deep rivers run quiet.”

Haruki Murakami book Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“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?”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

Kiss, Time, Clothes

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

Jack Kerouac book On the Road

Source: On the Road

People

“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.”

Paullina Simons (1963) Russian writer

Life, Soul

“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.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

Kubla Khan (1797 or 1798)
Source: The Complete Poems

Pleasure, 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.”

David Lubar (1954) Children's writer and game programmer

Source: Hidden Talents

Way, Search, Help

“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.”

Kenneth Grahame book The Wind in the Willows

Source: The Wind in the Willows

World, Heart, 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.”

Rick Riordan book The House of Hades

Source: The House of Hades

Night

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

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Life, Water

“Insanity makes the rivers flow.”

Amelia Atwater-Rhodes book Midnight Predator

Source: Midnight Predator

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

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Imagination

“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?”

Judith McNaught (1944) American writer

Love, Mountain, Question

“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.”

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Time, Fight

“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.”

Michelle Paver book Oath Breaker

Source: Oath Breaker

Pain, Heart

“Denial is not just a river in Egypt.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Nevermore

“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.”

Rick Riordan (1964) American writer

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

Patricia Briggs book River Marked

Source: River Marked

Business, Reality, Fight

“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.”

Rick Riordan book The Red Pyramid

Source: The Red Pyramid

Cats, Water

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

Allen Ginsberg book Howl and Other Poems

Source: Howl and Other Poems

Religion, Dreams

“Dip him in the river who loves water.”

William Blake book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Source: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Love, Water

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

Jim Butcher Dead Beat

Source: Dead Beat

Life, Time

“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.”

Laurie Halse Anderson Speak

Source: Speak

Home, Perfection

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

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

“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.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

"Alaska Glaciers: Graphic Description of the Yosemite of the Far Northwest", San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin (part 5 of 11 part series "Notes of a Naturalist") dated 7 September 1879, published 27 September 1879; reprinted as "Baird Glacier" in Letters from Alaska, edited by Robert Engberg and Bruce Merrell (University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), pages 28-32 (at page 31); modified slightly and reprinted in Travels in Alaska http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/travels_in_alaska/ (1915), chapter 5, A Cruise in the Cassiar First lines of the documentary film series " The National Parks: America's Best Idea http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks/" by Ken Burns. 1910s

World, Mountain, Light, Learning

“.. 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”

Carl Sagan book Pale Blue Dot

Source: Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

Thinking

“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.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Context: 11. The Master answered and said "Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.12. "The current of the river swept silently over them all — young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going it's own way, knowing only its own crystal self.13. "Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.14. "But one creature said at last, 'I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom.'15. "The other creatures laughed and said, 'Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!'16. "But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.17. "Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.18. "And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried 'See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah come to save us all!'19. "And the one carried in the current said, "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."20. "But they cried the more, 'Savior!' all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Savior."