W. H. R. Rivers Quotes & Sayings

Let us sleep by rivers and purify our ears. — Jack Kerouac

A woman could be the wind beneath a man's sails or a gale to send him into uncharted waters. She could be an anchor in stormy seas, or she could let him drift into the rocks. — Francine Rivers

The landscape everywhere, away from the river, is of rock - cliffs of rock; plateaus of rock; terraces of rock; crags of rock - ten thousand strangely carved forms. — John Wesley Powell

Other birds fly in groups, only eagles fly alone — Francine Rivers

All providences are doors to trial. Men may be drowned in seas of prosperity as well as in rivers of affliction. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Religion can hardly revive, because it cannot decay. To put the matter bluntly on the lowest level, it is not to anybody's interest that religion should disappear. If it did, many compositors would be thrown out of work; the audiences of our best-selling scientists would shrink to almost nothing; and the typewriters of the Huxley Brothers would cease from tapping. Without religion the whole human race would die, as according to W. H. R. Rivers, some Melanesian tribes have died, solely of boredom. Every one would be affected: the man who regularly has a run in his car and a round of golf on Sunday, quite as much as the punctilious churchgoer. — T. S. Eliot

People travel to wonder
at the height of the mountains,
at the huge waves of the seas,
at the long course of the rivers,
at the vast compass of the ocean,
at the circular motion of the stars,
and yet they pass by themselves
without wondering. — Augustine Of Hippo

Fuck me, I thought. I can do magic. — Ben Aaronovitch

Thanks be to God, not
only for 'rivers of endless joys above, but for 'rills of comfort here below.' — Adoniram Judson

Movements are like rivers. Dipping into them is never the same twice. — Gloria Steinem

What I love about jewelry is you can change it for something else without surgery. — Joan Rivers

But there still prevails, even in nations well acquainted with commerce, a strong jealousy with regard to the balance of trade, and a fear, that all their gold and silver may be leaving them. This seems to me, almost in every case, a groundless apprehension; and I should as soon dread, that all our springs and rivers should be exhausted, as that money should abandon a kingdom where there are people and industry. — David Hume

If the Soul sees, after death , what passes on this earth , and watches over the welfare of those it loves, then must its greatest happiness consist in seeing the current of its beneficent influences widening out from age to age, as rivulets widen into rivers, and aiding to shape the destinies of individuals, families, States, the World; and its bitterest punishment, in seeing its evil influences causing mischief and misery , and cursing and afflicting men, long after the frame it dwelt in has become dust, and when both name and memory are forgotten. — Albert Pike

[W.H.R.] Rivers is the Rider Haggard of anthropology; I shall be the Conrad. — Bronislaw Malinowski

As the river surrenders itself to the ocean, what is inside me moves inside you. — Kabir

If there is anything I have learned about men and women, it is that there is a deeper spirit of altruism than is ever evident. Just as the rivers we see are minor compared to the underground streams, so, too, the idealism that is visible is minor compared to what people carry in their hearts unreleased or scarcely released. — Albert Schweitzer

What we've done, it seems to me, is allow women to get older, but not to age. — Caryl Rivers

I could be the Greta Garbo of comedy, very secluded, but Garbo had a man who was beyond rich to support her. — Joan Rivers

Let me be very blunt: the heterosexual transmission of AIDS is, in Africa, a function of truly pathological promiscuity. So this is really a violence issue - not the same violence we deal with in Boston, where teenagers stab and shoot each other, but the violence of African men who are killing themselves, and killing African women and children, with pathological promiscuity. — Eugene Rivers

In Einstein's equation, time is a river. It speeds up, meanders, and slows down. The new wrinkle is that it can have whirlpools and fork into two rivers. So, if the river of time can be bent into a pretzel, create whirlpools and fork into two rivers, then time travel cannot be ruled out. — Michio Kaku

First off I am 35 years old, I am divorced, and I live in a van down by the river. — Chris Farley

Funding for faith-based charities should] be judged based on performance and results - not religion. Now, if our sin is that our religion can produce the results, then we plead guilty. — Eugene Rivers

You and I once fancied ourselves birds, and we were happy even when we flapped our wings and fell down and bruised ourselves, but the truth is that we were birds without wings. You were a robin ad I was a blackbird, and there were some who were eagles, or vultures, or pretty goldfinches, but none of us had wings.
For birds with wings nothing changes; they fly where they will and they know nothing about borders and their quarrels are very small.
But we are always confined to earth, no matter how much we climb to the high places and flap our arms. Because we cannot fly, we are condemned to do things that do not agree with us. Because we have no wings we are pushed into struggles and abominations that we did not seek, and then, after all that, the years go by, the mountains are levelled, the valleys rise, the rivers are blocked by sand and the cliffs fall into the sea. — Louis De Bernieres

How I want to see the mountains, rivers, sunshine, and ruined fortresses! Let the wind course over us until we become beautiful — Mian Mian

Tyra's always standing up for herself and her "race" over perceived slights. For example, she'll say, "You just pushed me because I'm black!" No, I pushed you because the train was coming right at you, you bulimic twit. — Joan Rivers

Palestine is Arab and must be liberated from the river to the sea and all the Zionists who emigrated to the land of Palestine must leave. — Saddam Hussein

I go to the river from time to time to ponder over the crazy days in my life. Watch the river flow, ease my mind and soul where I go. — Natalie Merchant

Every country-or at least every country that is fit for habitation-has its own rivers; and every river has its own quality; and it is the part of wisdom to know and love as many as you can, seeing each in the fairest possible light, and receiving from each the best that it has to give. — Henry Van Dyke

You ever have the feeling you were in the wrong place? That if you could just get over the next hill, cross the next river, look down into the next valley, it'd all ... fit. Be right."
"All my life, more of less"
"All your life spent getting ready for the next thing. I climbed a lot of hills now. I crossed a lot of rivers. Crossed the sea even, left everything I knew and came to Styria. But there I was, waiting for me at the docks when I got off the boat, same man, same life. Next valley ain't no different from this one. No better anyway. Reckon I've learned ... just to stick in the place I'm at. Just to be the man I am. — Joe Abercrombie

Virtues lose themselves in self-interest, as rivers in the sea. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The murmurs of many a famous river on the other side of the globe reach even to us here, as to more distant dwellers on its banks;many a poet's stream, floating the helms and shields of heroes on its bosom. — Henry David Thoreau

From high Meonia's rocky shores I came, Of poor decsent, Acoetes is my name, My sire was measly born: no oxen ploughed, His fruitful fields, nor in his pastures lowed, His whole estate within the waters lay' With lines and hooks he caught the finny prey; His art was all his livelehood, which he Thus with his dying lips bequeathed to me: In streams, my boy, and rivers take thy chance; There swims', said he, Thy whole inheritance. — Ovid

You've climbed too many mountains and crossed too many rivers to stop and turn back now. — Eleanor Brownn

Do my will, beloved. I drew you up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set your feet upon a rock. — Francine Rivers