Beautiful River Quotes & Sayings

I was born in a country of brooks and rivers, in a corner of Champagne, called Le Vallage for the great number of its valleys. The most beautiful of its places for me was the hollow of a valley by the side of fresh water, in the shade of willows ... My pleasure still is to follow the stream, to walk along its banks in the right direction, in the direction of the flowing water, the water that leads life towards the next village ... Dreaming beside the river, I gave my imagination to the water, the green, clear water, the water that makes the meadows green ... The stream doesn't have to be ours; the water doesn't have to be ours. The anonymous water knows all my secrets. And the same memory issues from every spring. — Gaston Bachelard

I have seen the glories of art and architecture, and mountain and river; I have seen the sunset on the Jungfrau, and the full moon rise over Mont Blanc; but the fairest vision on which these eyes ever looked was the flag of my country in a foreign land. Beautiful as a flower to those who hate it, terrible as a meteor to those who hate it, it is the symbol of the power and glory, and the honor, of fifty million Americans. — George Frisbie Hoar

I have an immoderate passion for water; for the sea, though so vast, so restless, so beyond one's comprehension; for rivers, beautiful, yet fugitive and elusive; but especially for marshes, teeming with all that mysterious life of the creatures that haunt them. A marsh is a whole world within a world, a different world, with a life of its own, with its own permanent denizens, its passing visitors, its voices, its sounds, its own strange mystery. — Guy De Maupassant

Mist lies over the river like the icy breath of winter angels. Darkness gathers round ... and it is beautiful.
Thank you for this life, this death, whatever it is you are
that makes us finally see. — Jay Woodman

Those who don't feel this Love pulling them like a river,
those who don't drink dawn like a cup of spring water
or take sunset like supper, those who don't want to change,
let them sleep.
This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
If you want to improve your mind that way sleep on.
I've given up on my brain.
I've torn the cloth to shreds and thrown it away.
If you're not completely naked wrap your beautiful robe
of words around you, and sleep — Rumi

I am the Lilum. Time. Truth. Destiny. The Endless River. The Wheel of Fate. You do not command me. — Kami Garcia

It?s a beautiful descent in a 737, into the Bitterroot Valley, following the Clark Fork River, on a perfect golden autumn day . — Garrison Keillor

It opened a little way, and a face came into the opening. It was Lona's. It's eyes were closed, but the face itself was upon me, and seemed to see me. It was as white as Eve's, white as Mara's, but did not shine like their faces. She spoke, and her voice was like a sleepy night-wind in the grass.
"Are you coming, king?" it said. "I cannot rest until you are with me, gliding down the river to the great sea, and the beautiful dream-land. The sleepiness is full of lovely things: come and see them. — George MacDonald

When all of the family was stilled in sleep, when the streetlamp a few paces from the house shone at night and made grotesque shadows of the trees upon the house, when the river sighed off into the darkness, when the trains hooted on their way to Montreal far upriver, when the winds swished in the soft treeleaves and something knocked and rattled on the old barn, you could stand in the road and look at this home and know that there is nothing more haunting than a house at night when the family is asleep, something strangely tragic, something beautiful forever. — Jack Kerouac

Xanthe, you are the most beautiful surprise in my life. I hardly noticed you at first. You carry the quiet of a river with a still surface that runs very deep. I found that the more I looked at you, the more I saw - and now the more I see of you, the more beautiful you become and the more I want you." He paused then said deeply, "I've never wanted anyone the way I have grown to want you. — Thea Harrison

I can't judge how beauty looks anymore," he said. "But I know the sound of it. It sounds like a flowing river of wild, sweet honey. Beauty smells like rosemary, and it tastes of nectar. Beauty sneezes like a flea." She smiled. That beautiful smile. How could she ever doubt her effect on him? "This is how plain you are. — Tessa Dare

There are many things worth telling that are not quite narrative. And eternity itself possesses no beginning, middle or end. Fossils, arrowheads, castle ruins, empty crosses: from the Parthenon to the Bo Tree to a grown man's or woman's old stuffed bear, what moves us about many objects is not what remains but what has vanished. There comes a time, thanks to rivers, when a few beautiful old teeth are all that remain of the two-hundred-foot spires of life we call trees. There comes a river, whose current is time, that does a similar sculpting in the mind. — David James Duncan

Let it be..let it be..
Let the ppl think the way they want,
Live the life the way u want
Let it be..let it be..
Nothing is permanent then why to worry,
Live life condition free
Let it be..let it be..
Smile cost nothing..still u pay for it, why we live life in hurry when everthing is tempory..
Let it be..let it be..
Respect ur elders wether they scold u, love urslf wthr no1 else does, u r most beautiful creature.beleive and accept it nd..
Let it be..let it be..
U r the king, u r the ruler.. conquer urslf nd let things pass like water in the river..move with flow..live has no other flow..
So..let it be..let it be.. — Nitish Sharma

Claudia Rankine's Citizen comes at you like doom. It's the best note in the wrong song that is America. Its various realities-'mistaken' identity, social racism, the whole fabric of urban and suburban life-are almost too much to bear, but you bear them, because it's the truth. Citizen is Rankine's Spoon River Anthology, an epic as large and frightening and beautiful as the country and various emotional states that produced it. — Hilton Als

Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, which they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. — Jane Austen

Comely was the town by the curving river that they dismantled in a year's time. Beautiful was Colleton in her last spring as she flung azaleas like a girl throwing rice at a desperate wedding. In dazzling profusion, Colleton ripened in a gauze of sweet gardens and the town ached beneath a canopy of promissory fragrance. — Pat Conroy

up and walked slowly to the mirror, and then she stood there with a broad smile, and a narrow river of tears gleaming on her face. He stood behind her, at a good distance. He wanted to leave her alone. This was her moment. "Oh God, Peter, it's beautiful." He laughed softly. "Not 'it's' beautiful, silly girl. You're beautiful. It is you, — Danielle Steel

I guess I was lucky I didn't drown, or smother in the thick, black, icy mud that the river left behind in its slow withdrawal back within its banks.

I didn't feel lucky.

When I regained consciousness, my head and ribs winning the battle with the rest of my body for sharp, almost unbearable pain, my first thought was Chrissy. Chrissy, pulled away from me by the merciless power of the water. Chrissy, lost somewhere, maybe injured, calling for me and I wasn't there for her. Chrissy, beautiful, wonderful Chrissy, quite probably lying in the mud, dead!

My scream of anguish, of pain and loss, echoed through the empty Liverpool streets. There was no shame or embarrassment in that shout, that bellow of emotion. I had lost the woman I loved. Nothing I'd ever felt compared to the agony, the gut-wrenching loss of that moment.

I cried. I sat there in the middle of a street I didn't recognise, not knowing how far the wave had carried me, and cried. — Neil Davies

And except on a certain kind of winter evening - six-thirty in the Seventies, say, already dark and bitter with a wind off the river, when I would be walking very fast toward a bus and would look in the bright windows of brownstones and see cooks working in clean kitchens and and imagine women lighting candles on the floor above and beautiful children being bathed on the floor above that - except on nights like those, I never felt poor; I had the feeling that if I needed money I could always get it. — Joan Didion

The stones of a river start out rough, but with the current continually bumping and polishing them, they end up being beautiful. — Swami Satchidananda

What a beautiful country this must have been once, when you could hop in a coupe and buy a bag of burgers and drive, drive, drive, stopping to swim in a river or sleep in a grove of trees without worrying about intaking mutagens or having the militia arrest you and send you to the Everglades for eternity. — George Saunders

The beauty of nature-humanity:
Animal is animal.
Book is book.
Forest is forest.
Happiness is happiness.
Human is human.
Joy is joy.
Mountain is mountain.
Music is music.
Ocean is ocean.
Life is life.
Light is light.
Love is love.
Plant is plant.
Peace is peace.
Stream is stream.
Sun is sun.
Spirit is spirit.
Snow is snow.
Rain is rain
Rainbow is rainbow.
River is river.
Wind is wind. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I think I would rather hear roundabout music than any symphony concert. I know Beatrix would be disgusted to hear me say so, but its so gladsad somehow and makes me feel brave, late at night long after we were in bed we could hear the music floating over the river, and see the reflected moving lights on our walls, it was beautiful to lie in bed like that. — Barbara Comyns

Usually, the murmur that rises up from Paris by day is the city talking; in the night it is the city breathing; but here it is the city singing. Listen, then, to this chorus of bell-towers - diffuse over the whole the murmur of half a million people - the eternal lament of the river - the endless sighing of the wind - the grave and distant quartet of the four forests placed upon the hills, in the distance, like immense organpipes - extinguish to a half light all in the central chime that would otherwise be too harsh or too shrill; and then say whetehr you know of anything in the world more rich, more joyous, more golden, more dazzling, than this tumult of bells and chimes - this furnace of music - these thousands of brazen voices, all singing together in flutes of stone three hundred feet high, than this city which is but one orchestra - this symphony which roars like a tempest. — Victor Hugo

The coast at the point at which he reached it seemed specially designed by nature for his favorable and auspicious reception. There lay before him what seemed the estuary of a large and beautiful river, free from rocks or other impediments, and with a very gentle current. It had an ample depth of water for his vessels, and was sufficiently broad, even at a considerable distance inland, for them to beat about in. It was encircled by lofty and picturesque hills, the aspect of which reminded him of the "Pena de los Enamorados" near Granada, in Spain; and upon the summit of one of them was what he described as another little hill, shaped like a graceful mosque. — Willis Fletcher Johnson

I remember how beautiful the Merrimac looked to me in childhood, the first true river I ever knew; it opened upon my sight and wound its way through my heart like a dream realized; its harebells, its rocks, and its rapids, are far more fixed in my memory than anything about the sea. — Lucy Larcom

What a great genius this water is! It has thousands of different beautiful faces: It is a rainbow, an ocean, a lake, an iceberg, a waterfall, a river, a drop, a fog ... What a great genius this water is! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Then summer came. A summer limp with the weight of blossomed things. Heavy sunflowers weeping over fences; iris curling and browning at the edges far away from their purple hearts; ears of corn letting their auburn hair wind down to their stalks. AND THE BOYS. The beautiful, beautiful boys who dotted the landscape like jewels, split the air with their shouts in the field, and thickened the river with their shining wet backs. EVEN THEIR FOOTSTEPS LEFT A SMELL OF SMOKE BEHIND! — Toni Morrison

Let's be simple and calm,
Like brooks and trees,
And God will love us by making
Beautiful things like the trees and brooks for us,
And give us greenness in his spring,
And a river for us to go to when we end... — Alberto Caeiro

Then Cynthia looked at him and smiled, and he knew he couldn't possibly resist her, no matter what she had done. It felt as though the two of them had just stripped naked and dived off a high cliff over a beautiful river. The water below looked cool and inviting. But what if it was only six inches deep? — Robert Burton Robinson

We had bought a kilo of cherries and we were eating them as we walked along. We were both insufferably childish and high-spirited that afternoon and th spectacle we presented, two grown men, jostling each other on the wide sidewalk, and aiming the cherry-pips, as though they were spitballs, into each other's facesm must have been outrageous. And I realized that such childishness was fantastic at my age and the happiness out of which it sprang yet more so; for that moment I really loved Giovanni, who had never seemed more beautiful than he was that afternoon. And, watching his face, I realized that it meant much to me that I could make his face so bright. I saw that I might be willing to give a great deal not to lose that power. And I felt myself flow toward him, as a river rushes when the ice breaks up. — James Baldwin

The river was so blue it seemed to be breathing. — Brian Morton

But, for all that, they had a very pleasant walk. The trees were bare of leaves, and the river was bare of water-lilies; but the sky was not bare of its beautiful blue, and the water reflected it, and a delicious wind ran with the stream, touching the surface crisply. — Charles Dickens

You've never seen Manhattan 'til you've flown right up the East River. It's beautiful. — Cory Lidle

Look at the animals roaming the forest: God's spirit dwells within them. Look at the birds flying across the sky: God's spirit dwells within them. Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: God's spirit dwells within them. Look at the fish in the river and sea ... .There is no creature on earth in whom God is absent ... his breath had brought every creature to life ... God's spirit is present within plant as well. The presence of God's spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful; and if we look with God's eyes, nothing on earth is ugly. — Pelagius

I could have had one life but insteads I had another because of this book my grandmother protected. What a miracle is that? I was taught to love beautiful things. I had a language in which to consider beauty. Later that extended to the opera, to the ballet, to architecture I saw, and even later still I came to realize that what I had seen in the paintings I could see in the fields or a river. I could see it in people. All of that I attribute to this book. — Ann Patchett

Without rich people who want it done now, who would animate the free world? In theory, you want everyone to live peacefully according to their needs, along the banks of a river. In fact, you worry that you'd die of boredom there. In fact, you get a buzz from someone like Carole Potter, who keeps prize chickens and could teach a graduate course in landscaping; who maintains a staff of four (more in the summers, during High Guest Season); a handsome, slightly ridiculous husband; a beautiful daughter at Harvard and an incorrigible son doing something or other on Bondi Beach; Carole who is charming and self-deprecating and capable, if pushed, of a hostile indifference crueler than any form of rage; who reads novels and goes to movies and theater and yes, yes, bless her, buys art, serious art, about which she actually fucking knows a thing or two. — Michael Cunningham

I sensed her before I saw her but I didn't scream. I remember thinking at the time that the split seconds before death were a quiet and still place. Her eyes were unapologetic, piercing and untamed. This is how it will end, I thought to myself with no sense of tragedy. It seemed complete and, in a way, romantic. But another second passed and then another. She released me from her hypnotic gaze and bent her beautiful head. And then with gentle flicks of her tongue began to drink from the river. Her eyes never wavered from mine as she lapped at the cool waters that flowed between us. And then, in a blink and a whisper, she was gone. — Giselle Fox

Btw Pink Floyd album out in October is called 'The Endless River.' Based on 1994 sessions is Rick Wright's swansong and very beautiful. — Polly Samson

When my own mother died, there seemed to me to be no answer to anything. For a time the only universality was death. And then I remember walking in the dusk along the quiet little street toward the house now so empty and meaningless. There was light enough from the sky to cast the lattice shadow of leaves on the walk. The sound of the river was steady and swift, and the air smelled of sulphur from the mills beyond it. As I looked up, a delicate petal of moon drifted into the tender blue, and all at once I thought, How beautiful God made the world! How wonderful that the stars still shine! And I was comforted. — Gladys Taber

As the youth came on in front of the others, he got the bronze in his chest beside the right nipple. On through his shoulder it went and he fell to earth in the dust like a sooth black poplar whose branchy top falls in the low grassland of a mighty marsh to the gleaming ax of some chariot-maker, who leaves t to dry by the banks of a river that he may bend him a rim for a beautiful chariot. Even such was the fall of Anthemion's son Simoeisius — Homer

The boulderfields, the spaces empty of people--a lonesomeness city-dwellers could never comprehend. Sometimes it seems like you know animals more intimately than people. Beaver heads cutting wake in the water, bear shit jeweled with seeds, deer quenching themselves in the river's cool. Her family has lived here for three hundred years. But the place is wretchedly poor and backward and may never be right. — Matthew Neill Null

It was so beautiful', he said. 'the Three Pagodas Pass must be one of the loveliest places in the world. you've got this broad valley with the river running down it, and the jungle forest, and the mountains ... we used to sit by the river and watch the sun setting behind the mountains, sometimes, and say what a marvellous place it would be to come to for a holiday. however terrible a prison camp may be, it makes a difference if its beautiful. — Nevil Shute

The more one lives alone on the river or in the open country, the clearer it becomes that nothing is more beautiful or great than to perform the ordinary duties of one's daily life simply and naturally. — Rabindranath Tagore

He was not being courageous as he bore the freezing stream for his wife and children. He simply chose between the lesser of two evils - the pain and suffering he would endure in the river, a physical pain that he could stand to bear, or the pain and suffering he would feel if he had to watch his family wade across and freeze. It was not a decision. The choice had already been made the moment Ole proposed marriage to his wife and welcomed these beautiful daughters into the world. — Sage Steadman

The other day I was down by the Hudson River, and I see two nuns in full habit rollerblading down the street holding hands. And I'm like, 'Oh, my God, I get it. The world is surreal and beautiful. And everything is fine.' — Regina Spektor

Los Angeles was a place after my own heart. The people were hospitable. The country had the same attraction for me that it had for the Indians who originally chose this spot as their place to live. The Los Angeles River was a beautiful, limpid little stream, with willows on its banks. It was so attractive to me that it at once became something about which my whole scheme of life was woven, I loved it so much. — William Mulholland

I didn't mean to upset you, Ms. Hamilton," his gaze shifted back to her. "It's a beautiful sight and I thought you'd like to see it." She gasped in delight at the vista before her. Distant purple mountains framed lush green meadows speckled with brown dots of cattle. A silver river threaded through clumps of trees. In the middle of the valley, ranch buildings clustered around a large white house. Elizabeth inhaled crisp air into her lungs... — Debra Holland

a very beautiful river, I love it more than anything.
Often I have listened to it, often I have looked into its eyes, and
always I have learned from it. Much can be learned from a river. — Hermann Hesse

In that pleasant district of merry England which is watered by the river Don, there extended in ancient times a large forest, covering the greater part of the beautiful hills and valleys which lie between Sheffield and the pleasant town of Doncaster. — Walter Scott

You need boundaries ... even in our material creations, boundaries mark the most beautiful of places, between the ocean and the shore, between the mountains and the plains, where the canyon meets the river. — Wm. Paul Young

Breakups usually don't happen down by the river with beautiful lighting. The moment you realize your relationship may be over might happen in Aisle 11 of Rite-Aid and the person you're with has disregarded your feelings and your needs by bringing you the wrong toothbrush again for the fourth time. — Jay Duplass

I encourage you to consider, just for this moment, your teaching as crafting a sand mandala. You go through your year, a year that took many years and months to prepare for. You create something beautiful and intricate and exquisite to admire. Then, you sweep it away. You drop it into the river of teaching time as a blessing for your future teaching self, for other teachers, and more importantly, all the children who have not yet been taught. — M. Colleen Cruz

Here for example the beautiful silver mirror of a river swells, a boy falls in, the water ripples sweetly around his locks, he sinks - and after a short while the silver mirror swells as before. — Adalbert Stifter

But as they rode out of Rifthold, that city that had been her home and her hell and her salvation, as she memorized each street and building and face and shop, each smell and the coolness of the river breeze, she didn't see one slave. Didn't hear one whip.
And as they passed by the domed Royal Theater, there was music - beautiful, exquisite music - playing within. — Sarah J. Maas

And that was the thing: you couldn't just stand there gawking at the world. A car slipped by. Then another. It was as if she'd stood frozen by the river of the world and gratefully stepped back into it, resuming her place ... The world waited, cold, grim, alive, beautiful. There was no saying no to it. — Liz Rosenberg

A lot of West Virginia is untouched. It doesn't have as many strip malls, it has these old towns that feel like it used to be how it looked. Charleston has this river that runs through it, and it's really beautiful. — Sam Trammell

Seattle is beautiful. You look at the sky and it's one of the most beautiful skies in the world, and then there's the Puget Sound, which will kill you, if you fall into it, but it's also beautiful. Seattle is a city of contradictions. It's the most liberal and most literate city in America, and it has Starbucks and [Bill] Gates, but it's also where the Green River killer hunted women and where the runaway population is just shocking when you walk the streets. Within the same city, there's darkness and light. — Veena Sud

I live in a beautiful part of the world - western New Hampshire along the Baker River - and my family and I spend a lot of time outdoors. — Joseph Monninger

What feels like such a painful loss now will become something beautiful later on. You cannot escape your destiny. You can certainly try. People do so every day. They hold on tight, and the river just dries up. — Elizabeth Lesser

I'm in this absolutely gorgeous manor house with acres of quite beautiful countryside. I've got trout in the river, an organic vegetable garden, I've got my work 40 yards from my home. I don't mind being criticised, but where are they criticising from? Which hut are they criticising me from, exactly? — Jay Kay

You are beautiful. You are unique. Your heart holds celestial love which flows like a mighty river through you to nourish the universe. — Debasish Mridha

Their voices rose and fell, like the murmuring of two fountains answering each other across a garden full of flowers. At length, with a certain tender impatience, he turned to her and said: 'Love, why should we linger here? All eternity lies before us. Let us go down into that beautiful country together and make a home for ourselves on some blue hill above the shining river'. — Edith Wharton

He took her hand again, enjoying the spark of fire that lit through his bloodstream and led her through the fog toward River Street.

Seeing the usually bustling area empty was equally beautiful and haunting. It brought back memories of earlier days. Centuries before cell phones and email.

Back when his crew would drop anchor in the cloak of night and shanghai new crew members out of the pubs.

Lifetimes ago. — Lisa Kessler

A century ago she might have been beautiful, her face reflected in the river instead of a mirror. But all the years have changed more than the shape of our blood and eyes. We wear fear now like a turquoise choker, like a familiar shawl. — Sherman Alexie

The course of the Rhine below Mainz becomes much more picturesque. The river descends rapidly and winds between hills, not high, but steep, and of beautiful forms. We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices, surrounded by black woods, high and inaccessible. This part of the Rhine, indeed, presents a singularly variegated landscape. In one spot you view rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with the dark Rhine rushing beneath; and on the sudden turn of a promontory, flourishing vineyards with green sloping banks and a meandering river and populous towns occupy the scene. — Mary Shelley

Oh fair enough are sky and plain,
But I know fairer far:
Those are as beautiful again
That in the water are;
The pools and rivers wash so clean
The trees and clouds and air,
The like on earth was never seen,
And oh that I were there.
These are the thoughts I often think
As I stand gazing down
In act upon the cressy brink
To strip and dive and drown;
But in the golden-sanded brooks
And azure meres I spy
A silly lad that longs and looks
And wishes he were I. — A.E. Housman

Do you believe in God?" Her small hand grips onto my larger one. "Yeah, baby girl," I say, looking down and watching her smile at my answer. "Do you think God will let me see you again?" She continues to ask questions that keep breaking me. "I know he will," I say, believing it more than anything. My faith has now been shaken, but I can't lose hope that where she is going will be somewhere beautiful and amazing. "When I go to God, will I see Charlie the goldfish?" She yawns, almost drifting off as the hospital machines beep around us. I nearly smile at her question, but I can't, because at the end of the day we're talking about death, and the inevitable end that's fast approaching. "I don't know, baby girl," I tell her, wishing I had the right answers for her. — River Savage

How Beautiful is the rain!
After the dust and heat,
In the broad and fiery street,
In the narrow lane,
How beautiful is the rain!
How it clatters along the roofs,
Like the tramp of hoofs!
How it gushes and struggles out
From the throat of the overflowing spout!
Across the window-pane
It pours and pours;
And swift and wide,
With a muddy tide,
Like a river down the gutter roars
The rain, the welcome rain!
-Rain in Summer — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

And when our bodies rise again,
they will be wildflowers, then rabbits,
then wolves singing a perfect love
to the beautiful, meaningless moon. — Philip Appleman

It should have been the Arabian Nights, but to Bond, seeing it first above the tops of trams and above the great scars of modern advertising along the river frontage, it seemed a once beautiful theatre-set that modern Turkey had thrown aside in favour of the steel and concrete flat-iron of the Istanbul-Hilton Hotel, blankly glittering behind him on the heights of Pera. — Ian Fleming

A beautiful city is Richmond, seated on the hills that overlook the James River. The dwellings have a pleasant appearance, often standing by themselves in the midst of gardens. In front of several, I saw large magnolias, their dark, glazed leaves glittering in the March sunshine. — William Cullen Bryant

The scaly spindles of a conifer's cone, the helicoidal flow of a river's curve biting away the bank, the flash of orange upon a butterfy's wings warning predators of a bitter taste. This is order from choas; this is beautiful, and it's all the more beautiful for having designed itself. — Alexandra Oliva

What a beautiful world it was once. At least a river of it was. — Norman Maclean

An amber sunset, a flowing river, a snow capped mountain, a beautiful heart, a calm mind, deep eyes, the moon, the earth and the sky - they are all silent. It's the words that give them meaning, decipher their essence and share their message. — Rashmit Kalra

Death is a force, not a man in a horse — Dry The River

Though you are three times more beautiful than angels,
Though you are the sister of the river willows,
I will kill you with my singing,
Without spilling your blood on the ground.
Not touching you with my hand,
Not giving you one glance, I will stop loving you,
But with your unimaginable groans
I will finally slake my thirst.
From her, who wandered the earth before me,
Crueler than ice, more fiery than flame,
From her, who still exists in the ether
From her you will set me free. — Anna Akhmatova

So what that the world is beautiful this morning? Enough of this wonder of nature crap. It almost killed me. — Sandra Gail Lambert

It was a lovely summer weather in the country, and the golden corn, the green oats, and the haystacks piled up in the meadows looked beautiful. The stork walking about on his long red legs chattered in the Egyptian language, which he had learnt from his mother. The corn-fields and meadows were surrounded by large forests, in the midst of which were deep pools. It was, indeed, delightful to walk about in the country. In a sunny spot stood a pleasant old farm-house close by a deep river, and from the house down to the water side grew great burdock leaves, so high, that under the tallest of them a little child could stand upright. The spot was as wild as the centre of a thick wood. In — Hans Christian Andersen

He looked around, as if he was seeing the world for the first time. Beautiful was the world, colorful was the world, strange and mysterious was the world! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green, the sky and the river flowed, the forest and the mountains were rigid, all of it was beautiful, all of it was mysterious and magical, and in its midst was he, Siddhartha, the awakening one, on the path to himself. — Hermann Hesse

Steve's throat swelled with tension as the intimacy of the moment became more tangible. He moved his eyes from the dark, reflective river, to the dark, reflective pupils in Diane's eyes. They seemed to quiver with tenderness - but then they would grow distant. He found himself continually surprised at the "aliveness" of the person standing just a foot away from him now. She wasn't inanimate: she would flinch if he pinched her, and answer if he asked her. And she was beautiful."
From "The Grand Unified Story"
a short story in Zack Love's Stories and Scripts: an Anthology — Zack Love

As insane as his request sounded to her, the fact that he already saw her nakedness the day before made her calm down a little. "He even covered my nakedness and gifted me with a beautiful dress," she thought to herself. He held her hand and led her to the Nile river's shore. He let go and stood back watching her. — Mirette Baghat

In NY sensuality completely turns into sexuality - no objects for the senses to respond to, no beautiful river, houses, people. Awful smells of the street, and dirt ... Nothing except eating, if that, and the frenzy of the bed. — Susan Sontag

He had his one life. In June 1942 he went to Lazarevo holding it in his hands. By the shores of the Kama, he found her gorgeous and restored, and not just restored to her original shining brilliance but enlarged and clarified. Light reflected off her, no matter which way she turned. They ran down to the almighty river. She never even looked back. She would never know what it meant to him, an unremitting sinner, after all the unsacred things he had seen and done, to have her innocence. He held her to him. He had dreamed of it too long, touching her. Dreamed of seeing her naked too long, beautiful, bare, ready for him. He was afraid to hurt her. He had never been with an untouched girl before; he wasn't sure if he was supposed to do something first. In the end, he did nothing first, but she baptized him with her body. There was no Alexander anymore; the man he knew had died and was reborn inside a perfect heart, given to him straight from God, to him and for him. — Paullina Simons

Nine out of ten humans killed? And you're not bothered."
A look of mysterious thoughtfulness crossed his face. "A virus can be useful to a species by thinning it out," he said.
A scream cut the air. It sounded nonhuman.
He took his eyes off the water and looked around. "Hear that pheasant? That's what I like about the Bighorn River," he said.
"Do you find viruses beautiful?"
"Oh, yeah," he said softly. "Isn't it true that if you stare into the eyes of a cobra, the fear has another side to it? The fear is lessened as you begin to see the essence of the beauty. Looking at Ebola under an electron microscope is like looking at a gorgeously wrought ice castle. The thing is so cold. So totally pure." He laid a perfect cast on the water, and eddies took the fly down. (92) — Richard Preston

We were a bookish family. we loved our books, but before long they were lined up next to the stove and my mother and my uncle fought over which should go first and which should be saved to the very last. The Iliad was a beautiful first edition, the pride of our library, but it too went: Agamemnon, king of men, Nestor, flower of Achaean chivalry, the Black Ships, Patroclus' corpse, Helen's bracelets, Cassandra's shrieks, all met the flames, for he sake of two or three suppers. My uncle was loath to let Mark Twain go...Huckleberry Finn and his river did not deserve such an ignominious end. — Edna O'Brien

She told him that he had the most beautiful voice she'd ever heard, that it sounded like whiskey and wood smoke. — Dennis Lehane

Just as the Mediterranean separated France from the country Algiers, so did the Mississippi separate New Orleans proper from Algiers Point. The neighborhood had a strange mix. It looked seedier and more laid-back all at the same time. Many artists lived on the peninsula, with greenery everywhere and the most beautiful and exotic plants. The French influence was heavy in Algiers, as if the air above the water had carried as much ambience as it could across to the little neighborhood. There were more dilapidated buildings in the community, but Jackson and Buddy passed homes with completely manicured properties, too, and wild ferns growing out of baskets on the porches, as if they were a part of the architecture. Many of the buildings had rich, ornamental detail, wood trim hand-carved by craftsmen and artisans years ago. The community almost had the look of an ailing beach town on some forgotten coast. — Hunter Murphy

The mind will say this forever. But I mostly fish rivers these dayas. In so doing, movement becomes stasis, flux is the constant, and everything flows around, through, and beyond me, escaping ungrasped, unnamed, and unscathed. The river's clean escape does not prevent belief in its reality. On the contrary, there is nothing I love more than the feel of a wholeness sliding toward, around, and past me while I stand like an idiot savant in its midst, focusing on tiny, idiot-savantic bits of what is so beautiful to me, and so close, yet so wondrously ungraspable. — David James Duncan

The Yellowstone river is a beautiful river to navigate. — William Henry Ashley

The sciences are like a beautiful river, of which the course is easy to follow, when it has acquired a certain regularity; but if one wants to go back to the source, one will find it nowhere, because it is everywhere; it is spread so much [as to be] over all the surface of the earth; it is the same if one wants to go back to the origin of the sciences, one will find only obscurity, vague ideas, vicious circles; and one loses oneself in the primitive ideas. — Lazare Carnot

Sometimes there is a wellspring or river of something beautiful and possible in the tenderest sense that comes to and from the most broken of children, and I was one of these, and whatever is was, I can't name, I can only thank. Perhaps it is the water of life that saves us, after all. — Linda Hogan

The quiet troubling of the river, and the clean, washed stones, and the green all about, and the trees trying to drown their shadows, and the mountain going up and up behind, there is beautiful it was. — Richard Llewellyn

Helen leaned down over her husband and ran her lips lightly across his bare shoulder in good-bye. Maybe, someday, she would find him by the River Styx. There, they could wash all their hateful memories away, and walk into a new life together, a life that didn't have the dirty paw prints of a dozen gods and a dozen kings marring it. Such a beautiful thought.
Helen vowed that she would live a hundred lives of hardship for one life - one real life - with Paris. They could be shepherds, just as they had dreamed once when they had met at the great lighthouse long ago. She'd be anything, really, a shopkeeper, or a farmer, whatever, as long as they were allowed to live their lives and each other freely. She dressed quickly, imagining herself tending a shop somewhere by the sea, hoping that someday this dream would come true. — Josephine Angelini

Poem for Liu Ya-tzu I cannot forget how in Canton we drank tea and in Chungking went over our poems when leaves were yellowing. Thirty-one years ago and now we come back at last to the ancient capital Peking. In this season of falling flowers I read your beautiful poems. Be careful not to be torn inside. Open your vision to the world. Don't say that waters of Kumming Lake are too shallow. We can watch fish better here than in the Fuchun River in the south. — Mao Zedong

... how it would be nice if, for every sea waiting for us, there would be a river, for us.
And someone -a father, a lover, someone- able to take us by the hand and find that river -imagine it, invent it- and put us on its stream, with the lightness of one only word, goodbye. This, really, would be wonderful. It would be sweet, life, every life. And things wouldn't hurt, but they would get near taken by stream, one could first shave and then touch them and only finally be touched. Be wounded, also. Die because of them. Doesn't matter. But everything would be, finally, human. It would be enough someone's fancy -a father, a lover, someone- could invent a way, here in the middle of the silence, in this land which don't wanna talk. Clement way, and beautiful.
A way from here to the sea. — Alessandro Baricco

When her muzzle grew more white than brown, the chipmunk forgot that she and the squirrel had had nothing to talk about. She forgot the definition of "jazz" as well and came to think of it as every beautiful thing she had ever failed to appreciate: the taste of warm rain; the smell of a baby; the din of a swollen river, rushing past her tree and onward to infinity. — David Sedaris

On the morning of what should have been Amelia Ashley's birthday, the river valley that had once housed High Bridge changed for Joshua Mayhew. For the first time in many years, it seemed beautiful to him. For the first time in many years, it was beautiful. — Tara Hudson

I'm a grandmother with dogs and nice friends here in the Rocky mountains. Ever see the movie A River Runs Through It? That's where I live. It's beautiful, no two ways about it. — Margot Kidder

A stilted heron labored up into the air and pounded down the river. — John Steinbeck