Profoundly inspirational river quotes will make you look at life differently and help you live a meaningful life.
Famous River Quotes
About fifteen miles above New Orleans the river goes very slowly. It has broadened out there until it is almost a sea and the water is yellow with the mud of half a continent. Where the sun strikes it, it is golden. — Frank Yerby
Never give up; for even rivers someday wash dams away. — Arthur Golden
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. — Norman Maclean
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
There are many different rivers that lead into despair: there’s poverty; there’s political repression; there’s gender apartheid – there’s a sense of culture loss; there’s religious fanaticism. — Lawrence Wright
Take a look at your natural river. What are you? Stop playing games with yourself. Where’s your river going? Are you riding with it? Or are you rowing against it? Don’t you see that there is no effort if you’re riding with your river? — Frederick Carl Frieseke
I turned my attention for a while to gamma ray astronomy and soon began the first in a continous series of experiments at the Savannah River site to study the properties of the neutrino. — Frederick Reines
In my early days in school, I had no shoes, no school bags. There were days I had only one meal… I walked miles and crossed rivers to school every day. Didn’t have power, didn’t have generators, studied with lanterns, but I never despaired. — Goodluck Jonathan
So it allows me to travel, I’ll be doing that and running these great rivers and doing what I’ve done in the past without much purpose other than for the experience. — Richard Dean Anderson
You might as well expect rivers to run backwards as any man born free to be contented penned up. — Chief Joseph
Do not let arguments of expediency persuade you. That is the slow road to oblivion. That is the tortured path to undoing step by step, bit by bit, as the river creates a canyon, the way of life that we love. — Charles Schumer
Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers. — Herbert Hoover
I mangle phrases constantly. The other day I was chatting with my boyfriend and I said to him, ‘He really sold him under the bus.’ And he said, ‘I think you meant ‘threw him under the bus,’ or ‘sold him up the river. — Cristin Milioti
I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy, as I go walking along the same river. — Zhuangzi
The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river. — Ross Perot
I was in college when tens of thousands of people marched on Washington for the first Earth Day. Raw sewage floated in rivers and clouds of smog hung over cities. But then something amazing happened. People spoke out. Thousands of students, workers, and ordinary citizens used their voices to say, ‘This has to change.’ — Frances Beinecke
Having contemplated this admirable grove, I proceeded towards the shrubberies on the banks of the river, and though it was now late in December, the aromatic groves appeared in full bloom. — William Bartram
I used to fish the Border rivers, but nowadays you have to queue up for a shot and I can’t stand that. — Norman MacCaig
I know that the only reason American landscapes sometimes disappoint me is that, just a century before I was born, the great rivers and prairies and wild forests still existed. And they were sublime. — John Burnside
The science of politics is the one science that is deposited by the streams of history, like the grains of gold in the sand of a river; and the knowledge of the past, the record of truths revealed by experience, is eminently practical, as an instrument of action and a power that goes to making the future. — Lord Acton
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water. — Loren Eiseley
John the Baptist, who we are told was related by blood to Jesus, was preaching the impending judgement of God, urging repentance and moral reform, and baptizing in the Jordan River those who responded. — Kenneth Scott Latourette
Instead of drifting along like a leaf in a river, understand who you are and how you come across to people and what kind of an impact you have on the people around you and the community around you and the world, so that when you go out, you can feel you have made a positive difference. — Jane Fonda
I’ve only had one platinum album, and it’s ‘Red River Blue’. — Blake Shelton
It is with rivers as it is with people: the greatest are not always the most agreeable nor the best to live with. — Henry Van Dyke
Never insult an alligator until after you have crossed the river. — Cordell Hull
Throughout the years, many Christian women have told me of their great respect for the bravery and courage evident in my work, perhaps even gesturing to their own Isis earrings or a Nile River Goddess pendants. — Carol P. Christ
Fishing seems to be the favorite form of loafing. — E. W. Howe
Puberty for a girl is like floating down a broadening river into an open sea. — G. Stanley Hall
The Cruise missiles do not frighten anyone. We are catching them like fish in a river. — Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
The Sanctuary at Two Rivers offers a much needed escape or retreat from the fast paced, modern lifestyle we have all become accustomed to, with its exquisite beauty, serenity, and raw nature. Costa Rica was the perfect place for developing such an important project. — Perrey Reeves
People love the electric rake. You just hit it or whatever you want to do. You can’t play ‘Swanee River’ on it. You have to just make terrible noise. Occasionally, it will make a sound like a note. — Eugene Chadbourne
You know it’s only 50 miles from Grand River to Canton, but it took me 67 years to travel that distance. — Don Shula
You cannot step into the same river twice. — Heraclitus
To connect with the great river we all need a path, but when you get down there there’s only one river. — Matthew Fox
Salzburg… is a mountain town with a rushing river running right through the center, everything in the rain various shades of green and brown. — Jonathan Carroll
Even as global warming increases the frequency of El Nino and the Atlantic event, their effects are being amplified by the annual loss of an area of rain forest the size of New Jersey. Less rain falls, and the water runs into the rivers instead of being sucked up by the fungus filaments and tree roots. — Alex Shoumatoff
I’m going to gut you like a fish. — Mike Tyson
I wish I could avoid the people who have threatened me. My favorite threat is that I will be thrown in the River Miljacka, which is at most knee-deep, with my feet bound in cement. — Aleksandar Hemon
You do not see the river of mourning because it lacks one tear of your own. — Antonio Porchia
I think there have always been funny women, from Carol Burnett to Joan Rivers. When the audience sees a woman, they innately know she’s worked twice as hard to get there, she’s had to prove that she can be the leader, first, and then be funny on top of it. She has to emit a confidence that she’s in control. — Wendy Liebman
Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him? — Blaise Pascal
The Yellowstone river is a beautiful river to navigate. — William Henry Ashley
I knew the whistle of each of the river boats on the Tennessee. — William Christopher Handy
You can work all your life and make all the waters in all the rivers on Earth drinkable, but if, when you die, you are not ready to meet God, it doesn’t matter. — Anne Graham Lotz
The Missouri is, perhaps, different in appearance and character from all other rivers in the world; there is a terror in its manner which is sensibly felt, the moment we enter its muddy waters from the Mississippi. — George Catlin
This is a truth that should be repeated like a mantra: to have any chance of a ful – filling life, we require not only clean air and a steady climate, but also an abundance of meadows and woodlands, rivers and oceans, teeming with life and the mass existence of other living creatures. — John Burnside
Most of the contract people at MGM stayed and stayed and stayed. Why? Because the studio looked after them. Warner Brothers wouldn’t – they were always spanking somebody or selling them down the river. — Ann Rutherford
Meaning is something we experience more than we attain. It’s like finding a nice, easy current in a river that carries you through life. — Donald Miller
I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you till China and Africa meet and the river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street. — W. H. Auden
Ideas, like large rivers, never have just one source. — Willy Ley
Well, it seems all the fish in the rivers are dying. Could this be an act of cod? — Colin Mochrie
Haiti itself was also photographed, some of the streets, some of the mountains, rivers, streams, etc. were photographed before talking with me about how I felt about Haiti. Then the camera went to our voodoo temple and saw a serious ceremony, a real ceremony. — Katherine Dunham
Most of the locks and dams on the upper Mississippi River system are over 60 years old and many are in serious need of repair and rehabilitation. — Ron Kind
Just as there’s garbage that pollutes the Potomac river, there is garbage polluting our culture. We need an Environmental Protection Agency to clean it up. — Pat Buchanan
The river route is certainly preferable, as it affords good grazing and an abundance of water. — William Whipple
The river flows at its own sweet will, but the flood is bound in the two banks. If it were not thus bound, its freedom would be wasted. — Vinoba Bhave
Hopping the fence or wading the Rio Grande River isn’t part of America’s immigration process. — Ted Nugent
To ancient Chinese fancy, the Milky Way was a luminous river, – the River of Heaven, – the Silver Stream. — Lafcadio Hearn
While the river of life glides along smoothly, it remains the same river; only the landscape on either bank seems to change. — Max Muller
Mother Nature is always speaking. She speaks in a language understood within the peaceful mind of the sincere observer. Leopards, cobras, monkeys, rivers and trees; they all served as my teachers when I lived as a wanderer in the Himalayan foothills. — Radhanath Swami
I like to interpret ‘Call me a River’, as if I’m saying, ‘Now you’re telling me you love me after all that, and I’m telling you to shove off.’ That’s my interpretation. But I would never ‘say’ that because somebody else might interpret the song in another way. — Diana Krall
I wouldn’t have the life I have without television. I wouldn’t be looking out my apartment window onto the East River; I wouldn’t be able to afford to have my mother with me this summer. So television has been very good to me. — Susan Sullivan
Well, I think breathing life into the Endangered Species Act, taking those wolves back into Yellowstone, restoring the salmon in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest. — Bruce Babbitt
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
I like the evening in India, the one magic moment when the sun balances on the rim of the world, and the hush descends, and ten thousand civil servants drift homeward on a river of bicycles, brooding on the Lord Krishna and the cost of living. — James Cameron
Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire. — Jorge Luis Borges
At a tiny station in New Albany, Indiana, which is right across from the river from Louisville, Kentucky, where I grew up. The Louisville stations were loath to hire beginners, so I had to go across the river. — Bob Edwards
There’s a lot of dancing in football. You can see Victor Cruz doing a little bit of cha-cha or sambra move in the end zone. You can see Terrell Owens getting his popcorn ready. You can see Ochocinco doing the river dance. But not so much in the ballroom. — Emmitt Smith
We depend on our rivers and dams for energy, transportation, irrigation and recreation and I will continue this year to fight for what’s best for the Pacific Northwest. — Cathy McMorris Rodgers
I shall take all the troubles of the past, all the disappointments, all the headaches, and I shall pack them in a bag and throw them in the East River. — Trygve Lie
The blues is a mighty long road. Or it could be a river, one that twists and turns and flows into a sea of limitless musical potential. — Billy Gibbons
In spirituals, the talk of heaven and deliverance was code for a better life. ‘Crossing the River Jordan’ was code, of course, for escaping to freedom. — Kathleen Battle
The deepest rivers make least din, The silent soule doth most abound in care. — William Alexander
The river is constantly turning and bending and you never know where it’s going to go and where you’ll wind up. Following the bend in the river and staying on your own path means that you are on the right track. Don’t let anyone deter you from that. — Eartha Kitt
True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes. — E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax
Congress has an obligation to protect our country’s natural beauty, embodied in our nation’s parks, rivers, and breathtaking landscapes. — Dave Reichert
China and India are close neighbours linked by mountains and rivers and the Chinese and Indian peoples have enjoyed friendly exchanges for thousands of years. — Li Peng
I have been out again on the river, rowing. I find nothing new. — Fanny Kemble
The novel is not so much a literary genre, but a literary space, like a sea that is filled by many rivers. — Jose Saramago
Finally, the ecological health of the Mississippi River and its economic importance to the many people that make their living or seek their recreation is based on a healthy river system. — Ron Kind
I used to waterski on the Niagara River. — Kim Alexis
As founder and co-chair of the upper Mississippi River Congressional task force, I have long sought to preserve the river’s health and historical multiple uses, including as a natural waterway and a home to wildlife, for the benefit of future generations of Americans. — Ron Kind
Not since the Depression has the state been this dry, have our rivers been this low, our water table this low, and our reservoirs this low. — Parris Glendening
Fame, like the river, is narrowest where it is bred, and broadest afar off. — William Davenant
I am proud to place Tercio Red River into a conservation easement forever protecting this spectacular landscape with Colorado Open Lands. — Louis Bacon
The logs of wood which move down the river together Are driven apart by every wave. Such inevitable parting Should not be the cause of misery. — Siddha Nagarjuna
The road to democracy may be winding and is like a river taking many curves, but eventually the river will reach the ocean. — Chen Shui-bian
I love The Inn at Palmetto Bluff, an Auberge Property in Bluffton, South Carolina. Its a spectacular corner of the world, with massive old trees lined with Spanish moss, and alligators swimming in the river. — Gail Simmons
Dams have harmed our wildlife and made rivers less useful for recreation. — Stephen Ambrose
Having made the trip from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean myself going up up up against twenty-five hundred miles of the Missouri River, I can testify that it’s one of the most arduous trips that anyone can make on this continent and yet I had a power boat to do it in. — William Least Heat-Moon
I had the Big Horn river explored from Wind River mountain to my place of embarkation. — William Henry Ashley
I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on summer humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives. — Ann Voskamp
There have been many occasions when I found it helpful to talk out loud to my own thoughts, ordering the unwholesome ones to go off somewhere and jump into the river. — Vash Young
In the rich world, the environmental situation has improved dramatically. In the United States, the most important environmental indicator, particulate air pollution, has been cut by more than half since 1955, rivers and coastal waters have dramatically improved, and forests are increasing. — Bjorn Lomborg
We live in a state with a wonderful climate and plenty of natural beauty, from the shores of Cumberland Island to the Chattahoochee River to the Blue Ridge Mountains. — Roy Barnes
I have not been on any river that has more of a distinctive personality than does the Missouri River. It’s a river that immediately presents to the traveler, ‘I am a grandfather spirit. I have a source; I have a life. — William Least Heat-Moon
Between flattery and admiration there often flows a river of contempt. — Minna Antrim
You’ve got to remember, Vermont is a lot of beautiful mountains with valleys and small brooks that run into bigger rivers. — Peter Shumlin
Faith? Haven’t any. I’m not a nihilist or a relativist. I don’t believe in anything but change. I’m a Heraclitean – you can’t step in the same river twice. — Philip Johnson
