Rivers Quotes, Quotations, and Sayings

24 Rivers Quotes
[1-24] 
“At last the Muses rose, . . . And scattered, . . . as they flew, Their blooming wreaths from fair Valclusa's bowers To Arno's myrtle border.”
Mark Akenside Quotes
Source: Pleasures of the Imagination (II)
“Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes! My peace with these, my love with those. The bursting tears my heart declare; Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr.”
Robert Burns Quotes
Source: The Banks of Ayr
“Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes, Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise.”
Robert Burns Quotes
Source: Flow Gently, Sweet Afton
“Ayr, gurgling, kissed his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green; The fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar Twined amorous round the raptures scene.”
Robert Burns Quotes
Source: To Mary in Heaven
“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 Quotes
Source: Kubla Khan
“Yet I will look upon thy face again, My own romantic Bronx, and it will be A face more pleasant than the face of men. Thy waves are old companions, I shall see A well remembered form in each old tree And hear a voice long loved in thy wild minstrelsy.”
Joseph Rodman Drake Quotes
Source: Bronx
“And see the rivers how they run Through woods and meads, in shade and sun, Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,-- Wave succeeding wave, they go A various journey to the deep, Like human life to endless sleep!”
John Dyer Quotes
Source: Grongar Hill (l. 93)
“The fountains of sacred rivers flow upwards (i.e., everything is turned topsy turvy.)”
Euripides Quotes
Source: Medea (409)
“"O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, Across the sands o' Dee;" The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam And all alone went she.”
Charles Kingsley Quotes
Source: The Sands o' Dee
“Out of the hills of Habersham, Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain; Run the rapid and leap the fall, Split at the rock, and together again Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, And flee from folly on every side With a lover's pain to attain the plain, Far from the hills of Habersham, Far from the valleys of Hall.”
Sidney Lanier Quotes
Source: The Song of the Chattahoochee
“Then I saw the Congo, creeping through the black, Cutting through the jungle with a golden track.”
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay Quotes
Source: The Congo
“Two ways the rivers Leap down to different seas, and as they roll Grow deep and still, and their majestic presence Becomes a benefaction to the towns They visit, wandering silently among them, Like patriarchs old among their shining tents.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (pt. V)
“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”
Norman Fitzroy Maclean Quotes
Source: A River Runs Through It
“On the Big Blackfoot River above the mouth of Belmont Creek the banks are fringed by large Ponderosa pines. In the slanting sun of late afternoon the shadows of great branches reached across the river, and the trees took the river in their arms.”
Norman Fitzroy Maclean Quotes
Source: A River Runs Through It
“By shallow rivers, to whose falls Melodies birds sing madrigals.”
Christopher Marlowe Quotes
Source: The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
“How sweet to move at summer's eve By Clyde's meandering stream, When Sol in joy is seen to leave The earth with crimson beam; When islands that wandered far Above his sea couch lie, And here and there some gem-like star Re-opes its sparkling eye.”
Andrew Park Quotes
Source: The Banks of Clyde
“He who does not know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide. [Fr., Les rivieres sont des chemins qui marchant et qui portent ou l'on veut aller.]”
Blaise Pascal Quotes
Source: Pensees (VII, 38)
“Rivers are roads that move and carry us whither we wish to go. [Fr., Les rivieres sont des chemins qui marchant et qui portent ou l'on veut aller.]”
Blaise Pascal Quotes
Source: Pensees (VII, 38)
“Now scantier limits the proud arch confine, And scarce are seen the prostrate Nile or Rhine; A small Euphrates thro' the piece is roll'd, And little eagles wave their wings in gold.”
Alexander Pope Quotes
Source: Moral Essays--Epistle to Addison (l. 27)
“Where stray ye, Muses! in what lawn or grove, . . . . In those fair fields where sacred Isis glides, Or else where Cam his winding vales divides?”
Alexander Pope Quotes
Source: Summer (l. 23)
“Flow on, lovely Dee, flow on, thou sweet river, Thy banks' purest stream shall be dear to me ever.”
John Tait Quotes
Source: The Banks of the Dee
“I love any discourse of rivers, and fish and fishing.”
Izaak Walton Quotes
Source: The Compleat Angler (pt. I, ch. XVIII)
“How bright the sunshine dances in its joy, O'er the still flow of this majestic river!”
John Wilson (2) (used pseudonym Christopher North) Quotes
Source: City of the Plague
“From Stirling Castle we had seen The mazy Forth unravelled; Had trod the banks of Clyde and Tay, And with the Tweed had travelled; And when we came to Clovenford, Then said "my winsome marrow," "Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside, And see the braes of Yarrow."”
William Wordsworth Quotes
Source: Yarrow Unvisited