Celebrate water, the source of all life, with these 10 of the best literary quotes about water.

1.

“Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can’t go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”―Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad

2.

“It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things.”―Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

3.

“Don’t be ashamed to weep; ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us.”―Brian Jacques, Taggerung

4.

“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),

It’s always our self we find in the sea.”

―e.e. cummings, 100 Selected Poems

5.

“Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.”―Wallace Stevens

6.

“Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.”―Steve Maraboli

7.

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”―Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through it and Other Stories

8.

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.”―John Lubbock, The Use Of Life

9.

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”―Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

10.

“In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence.”―Kahlil Gibran

Related: 25 Of The Best Literary Quotes About Nature

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