Water Quotes - Page 39

• [Dawn] is always such a forgiving time. When that first cold, bright streak comes over the water, it's as if all our sins were pardoned; as if the sky leaned over the earth and kissed it and gave it absolution.

  Willa Cather

  Sky, Forgiving, Dawn

  Willa Cather (1938). “The Novels and Stories of Willa Cather ...”

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• Along this particular stretch of line no express had ever passed. All the trains--the few that there were--stopped at all the stations. Denis knew the names of those stations by heart. Bole, Tritton, Spavin Delawarr, Knipswich for Timpany, West Bowlby, and, finally, Camlet-on-the-Water.

  Aldous Huxley

  Book, Heart, Names

  Aldous Huxley (1922). “Crome Yellow”

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• I was born under the Blue Ridge, and under that side which is blue in the evening light, in a wild land of game and forest and rushing waters.

  Winston Churchill

  Book, Evening Light, Blue

  Winston Churchill (2012). “The Crossing”, p.6, The Floating Press

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• And that all seas are made calme and still with oile; and therefore the Divers under the water doe spirt and sprinkle it abroad with their mouthes because it dulceth and allaieth the unpleasant nature thereof, and carrieth a light with it.

  Pliny the Elder

  Light, Sea, Doe

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• I am not lucky. I am the type who would go to Lourdes and drown in the waters.

  Joan Rivers

  Luck, Type, Lourdes

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• People, like water, seek their own level.

  Ann Landers

  People, Levels

  Ann Landers (1978). “The Ann Landers encyclopedia, A to Z: improve your life emotionally, medically, sexually, socially, spiritually”, Galahad Books

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• Did you ever look through a microscope at a drop of pond water? You see plenty of love there. All the amoebae getting married. I presume they think it very exciting and important. We don't.

  Rose Macaulay

  Thinking, Important, Ponds

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• Stand here by my side and turn, I pray,
  On the lake below thy gentle eyes;
  The clouds hang over it, heavy and gray,
  And dark and silent the water lies;
  And out of that frozen mist the snow
  In wavering flakes begins to flow;
  Flake after flake,
  They sink in the dark and silent lake.

  William C. Bryant

  Lying, Eye, Dark

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• Spirituality is best manifested on the ground, not in the air. Rapturous day-dreams, flights of heavenly fancy, longings to see the Invisible, are less expensive and less expressive than the plain doing of duty. To have bread excite thankfulness and a drink of water send the heart to God is better than sighs for the unattainable. To plow a straight furrow on Monday or dust a room well on Tuesday or kiss a bumped forehead on Wednesday is worth more than the most ecstatic thrill under Sunday eloquence. Spirituality is seeing God in common things, and showing God in common tasks.

  Maltbie Davenport Babcock

  Dream, Monday, Heart

  Maltbie Davenport Babcock (1901). “Thoughts for Every-day Living from the Spoken and Written Words of Maltbie Davenport Babcock”

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• however many resolutions one makes, one's pen, like water, always finds its own level, and one can't write in any way other than one's own.

  Vita Sackville-West

  Writing, Levels, Way

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• There is a gentle element, and man may breathe it with a calm, unruffled soul, and drink its living waters, till his heart is pure; and this is human happiness.

  Nathaniel Parker Willis

  Happiness, Heart, Men

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• Be not frightened at the hard words "imposition," "imposture;" give and ask no questions. Cast thy bread upon the waters. Some have, unawares, entertained angels.

  Charles Lamb

  Angel, Giving, Charity

  Charles Lamb (1855). “Works, with a Sketch of His Life and Final Memorials”, p.138

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• We must breathe time as fishes breathe water.

  Denise Levertov

  Time, Breathe, Fishes

  Denise Levertov, Paul A. Lacey (2002). “Selected Poems”, p.161, New Directions Publishing

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• Arguments could fill a marriage like water, running through everything, always, with no taste or color but lots of noise.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Running, Color, Noise

  Barbara Kingsolver (2008). “Prodigal Summer”, p.43, Faber & Faber

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• Any mother with half a skull knows that when Daddy's little boy becomes Mommy's little boy, the kid is so wet he's treading water.

  Erma Bombeck

  Mother, Kids, Boys

  Erma Bombeck (1997). “Forever, Erma: Best-Loved Writing From America's Favorite Humorist”, p.5, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• A writer should give direct certainty; explanations are so much water poured into the wine.

  Virginia Woolf

  Wine, Giving, Should

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “The Common Reader”, p.89, Lulu Press, Inc

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• The only fountain in the wilderness of life, where man drinks of water totally unmixed with bitterness, is that which gushes for him in the calm and shady recess of domestic life.

  William Penn

  Men, Bitterness, Calm

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• The stream of passing years is like a river with people being carried along in the current. Some are swept along, protesting, fighting all the way, trying to swim back up the stream, longing for the shores that they have passed, clutching at anything to retard their progress, frightened by the onward rush of the strong current and in danger of being overwhelmed by the waters. Others go with the current freely, trusting themselves to the buoyancy of the water.

  Laura Ingalls Wilder

  Strong, Fighting, Years

  Laura Ingalls Wilder (1997). “Saving Graces: The Inspirational Writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder”, B & H Publishing Group

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• I find that when I have any appointment, even an afternoon one, it changes the whole quality of time. I feel overcharged. There is no space for what wells up from the subconscious; those dreams and images live in deep still water and simply submerge when the day gets scattered.

  May Sarton

  Dream, Space, Quality

  May Sarton (2014). “Journal of a Solitude”, p.103, Open Road Media

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• A good conscience is a port which is landlocked on every side, where no winds can possibly invade. There a man may not only see his own image, but that of his Maker, clearly reflected from the undisturbed waters.

  John Dryden

  Men, Wind, May

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• Once in Africa I lost the corkscrew and we were forced to live off food and water for weeks.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Week, Lost

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• After all, there is such a thing as looking like a gentleman. There are men whose class no dirt or rags can hide, any more than they could Ulysses. I have seen such men in plenty among workmen, too; but, on the whole, the gentleman--by whom I do not mean just now the rich--have the superiority in that point. But not, please God, forever. Give us the same air, water, exercise, education, good society, and you will see whether this "haggardness," this "coarseness" (etc., for the list is too long to specify), be an accident, or a property, of the man of the people.

  Charles Kingsley

  Mean, Exercise, Men

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• A living man must have a living God, or his soul will perish in the midst of earthly plenty, and will thirst and die whilst the water of earthly delights is running all around him. We are made to need persons not things.

  Alexander MacLaren

  Running, Men, Soul

  Alexander MacLaren “MacLaren's Commentary- Expositions of Holy Scripture”, Delmarva Publications, Inc.

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• [On William Lyon Phelps's Happiness:] It is second only to a rubber duck as the ideal bathtub companion. It may be held in the hand without causing muscular fatigue ... and it may be read through before the water has cooled. And if it slips down the drain pipe, all right, it slips down the drain pipe.

  Dorothy Parker

  Ducks, Hands, May

  Dorothy Parker (2004). “Dorothy Parker in Her Own Words”, Taylor Trade Publishing

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• When one that holds communion with the skies
  Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise,
  And once more mingles with us meaner things,
  'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings.

  William Cowper

  Angel, Sky, Wings

  William Cowper (1855). “The complete poetical works of William Cowper, with life and critical notice of his writings”, p.77

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