A Quote by Herman Melville

There's magic in the water that draws all men away form the land, that leads them over hills, down creeks and streams and rivers to the sea.

Herman Melville

Quote Topics

Away Creeks Down Draws Form Hills Land Leads Magic Men Over Rivers Sea Streams Them Water

Quote Author

Herman Melville
American - Novelist
August 1, 1819 - September 28, 1891

The sea is the source of water and the source of wind; for neither would blasts of wind arise in the clouds and blow out from within them, except for the great sea, nor would the streams of rivers nor the rain-water in the sky exist but for the sea ; but the great sea is the begetter of clouds and winds and rivers.

Xenophanes

I see an America whose rivers and valleys and lakes hills and streams and plains the mountains over our land and nature's wealth deep under the earth are protected as the rightful heritage of all the people.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Into the bosom of the one great sea Flow streams that come from the hills on every side, Their names are various as their springs And thus in every land do men bow down To one great God, though known by many names.

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

I have watched the river and the sea for a lifetime. I have seen rivers rob soil from the roots of trees until the giants came foundering down. I have watched shores slip and perish, the channels silt and change; what was beach become a swamp and a headland tumble into the sea. An island has eroded in silent pain since my boyhood, and reefs have become islands. Yet the old people used to say, People pass away, but not the land. It remains forever. Maybe that is so. The land changes. The land continues. The sea changes. The sea remains.

Keri Hulme

Nature … is, as it were, a continual circulation. Water is rais'd in Vapour into the Air by one Quality and precipitated down in drops by another, the Rivers run into the Sea, and the Sea again supplies them.

Robert Hooke

I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen. I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number. I am he that buries his friends alive and drowns them and draws them alive again from the water. I came from the end of a bag, but no bag went over me. I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider.

J. R. R. Tolkien

New data suggests contamination in rivers and streams, as well as on land, is increasingly common, with most of the pollution in the form of microscopic pieces of synthetic fibers, largely from clothing.

Tatiana Schlossberg

I dream of land, cut only where streams glistened with birdsong wander through quiet hills burnt hard by the scrape of wind, and of a porch from which a single road leads only homeward.

Nancy E. Turner

The reason why rivers and seas are able to be lords over a hundred mountain streams, is that they know how to keep below them. That is why they are able to reign over all the mountain streams.

Laozi

The sea has now changed from it's natural, to river coloured water, the probable consequence of some streams falling into the bay, or into the ocean to the north of it, through the low land.

George Vancouver

The sea has now changed from its natural, to river coloured water, the probable consequence of some streams falling into the bay, or into the ocean to the north of it, through the low land.

George Vancouver

When we talk of flood control, we usually think of dams and deeper river channels, to impound the waters or hurry their run-off. Yet neither is the ultimate solution, simply because floods are caused by the flow of water downhill. If the hills are wooded, that flow is checked. If there is a swamp at the foot of the hills, the swamp sponges up most of the excess water, restores some of it to the underground water supply and feeds the remainder slowly into the streams. Strip the hills, drain the boglands, and you create flood conditions inevitably. Yet that is what we have been doing for years.

Hal Borland

But we have not used our waters well. Our major rivers are defiled by noxious debris. Pollutants from cities and industries kill the fish in our streams. Many waterways are covered with oil slicks and contain growths of algae that destroy productive life and make the water unfit for recreation. "Polluted Water-No Swimming" has become a familiar sign on too many beaches and rivers. A lake that has served many generations of men now can be destroyed by man in less than one generation.

Lyndon B. Johnson

Flying over New Orleans on our approach, I got it. There was no view of land without water - water in the great looming form of Lake Pontchartrain, water cutting through in tributaries, water flowing beside a long stretch of highway, water just - everywhere.

Rachel Sklar

Over this country, when the giant Eagle flings the shadow of his wing, the land is darkened. So compact is it that the wing covers all its extent in one pause of the flight. The sea breaks on the pale line of the shore; to the Eagle's proud glance waves run in to the foot of the hills that are like rocks planted in green water.