We’ve been lucky enough to see some beautiful rivers when out on our hikes, from the turquoise blues of New Zealand and Taiwan to the emerald greens we find in our local area, Sydney. We’ll always sit and spend some time watching the ebb and flow of the water and they never fail to have a calming influence.
We’ve put together some of our favourite quotes about rivers, perfect for when you have a beautiful photo to caption or when you’re looking for some inspiration or motivation.
40 Inspirational River Quotes
“A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence.“
- Jim Watkins
“I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.”
- John O'Donohue
“Life is like the river, sometimes it sweeps you gently along and sometimes the rapids come out of nowhere.”
- Emma Smith
“The river moves, but it follows a path. When it tires of one journey, it rubs through some rock to forge a new way. Hard work, but that's its nature.”
- Kekla Magoon
“The river has great wisdom and whispers its secrets to the hearts of men.”
- Mark Twain
“Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea.”
- Mikhail Lermontov
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”
- Heraclitus
“Who hears the rippling of rivers will not utterly despair of anything.”
- Henry David Thoreau
“A river is water is its loveliest form, rivers have life and sound and movement and infinity of variation, rivers are veins of the earth through which the lifeblood returns to the heart.”
- Roderick Haig-Brown
“Love, like a river, will cut a new path whenever it meets an obstacle.”
- Crystal Middlemas
“A river seems a magic thing. A magic, moving, living part of the very earth itself.”
- Laura Gilpin
“A dream is like a river ever changing as it flows and a dreamer's just a vessel that must follow where it goes.”
- Garth Brooks
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
- Rumi
“A woman in harmony with her spirit is like a river flowing. She goes where she will without pretence and arrives at her destination prepared to be herself and only herself.”
- Maya Angelou
“Water is the driving force of all nature.”
- Leonardo da Vinci
”A river doesn’t just carry water, it carries life.”
- Amit Kalantri
“A river has many curves, but it always reaches the ocean.”
- Donald L. Hicks
“A good river is nature’s life work in song.”
- Mark Helprin
“Rivers are places that renew our spirit, connect us with our past, and link us directly with the flow and rhythm of the natural world.”
- Ted Turner
“What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn’t have any doubt it is sure to get where it is going, and it doesn’t want to go anywhere else.”
- Hal Boyle
“Rivers don't drink their own waters; trees don't eat their own fruits. The salt seasons the soup in order to have its purpose fulfilled. Live for others!”
- Israelmore Ayivor
“Love is the river of life in the world.”
- Henry Ward Beecher
“I had no plans of any destination. I wish to flow like a river.”
- Lailah Gifty Akita
“To put your hands in a river is to feel the chords that bind the earth together.”
- Barry Lopez
“He who does not know his way to the sea should take a river for his guide.”
- Blaise Pascal
“I was still water, held by my surroundings. I am now a river, carving my own path.”
- Scott Stabile
“Be like a river. Be open. Flow.”
- Julie Connor
“By the time it came to the edge of the Forest, the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
- A. A. Milne
“River is time in water; as it came, still so it flows, yet never is the same.”
- Barten Holyday
“I understand that everything is connected, that all roads meet, and that all rivers flow into the same sea.”
- Paulo Coelho
“Never give up, for that is just the place and time the tide will turn.”
- Harriet Beecher Stowe
“Rivers flow not past, but through us; tingling, vibrating, exciting every cell and fiber in our bodies, making them sing and glide.“
- John Muir
“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
”You can’t be unhappy in the middle of a big, beautiful river.”
- Jim Harrison
“We steer the boat, we don’t alter the river.”
- J. Earp
“True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes.”
- Edward FL Wood
“If the earth is a mother then rivers are her veins.”
- Amit Kalantri
“We must begin thinking like a river if we are to leave a legacy of beauty and life for future generations.”
- David Brower
“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.”
- Loren Eiseley
