77 Inspiring Water Quotes

Water, a vital element of nature, holds a profound symbolism across cultures and philosophies. It represents life, renewal, and purity, inspiring countless reflections and musings over the centuries. This collection of 77 inspiring water quotes invites you to dive into the depths of wisdom and emotion that poets, thinkers, and leaders have drawn from this essential source. Whether it's the gentle flow of a river, the strength of an ocean, or the serene beauty of a still pond, each quote encapsulates the timeless nature of water and its powerful impact on our lives. Prepare to be moved by these eloquent expressions of how water continues to shape our world and our souls.

1. “Dip him in the river who loves water.” - William Blake

2. “Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.” - Christopher Hitchens

3. “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

4. “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

5. “The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water, - so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be.” - Henry David Thoreau

6. “Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

7. “For the people of my country," Renato said, "water is everything: love, life, religion... even God.""It is like that for me too," I said. "In English we call that a metaphor.""Of course," said Renato, "and water is the most abundant metaphor on earth.” - Pam Houston

8. “The best way to keep your daughter out of hot water is to put some dishes in it.” - Bob Phillips

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

10. “People left a lot of things behind when they went in the water. Their clothes, their stuff, their makeup, their fixed-up hair, their voices, their hearing, their sight—at least as the normally experienced them.” - Ann Brashares

11. “The ocean was the best place, of course. That was what she loved most. It was a feeling of freedom like no other, and yet a feeling of communion with all the other places and creatures the water touched.” - Ann Brashares

12. “Where the waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give.” - Jane Austen

13. “He wouldn't call a glass of water half full or half empty; he'd assume it was poisoned and run away. ” - Michael Reisman

14. “The desert and the ocean are realms of desolation on the surface.The desert is a place of bones, where the innards are turned out, to desiccate into dust.The ocean is a place of skin, rich outer membranes hiding thick juicy insides, laden with the soup of being.Inside out and outside in. These are worlds of things that implode or explode, and the only catalyst that determines the direction of eco-movement is the balance of water.Both worlds are deceptive, dangerous. Both, seething with hidden life.The only veil that stands between perception of what is underneath the desolate surface is your courage.Dare to breach the surface and sink.” - Vera Nazarian

15. “He was going to take a dive into this lake. He just didn’t know it. Cerise rose, finding footing in the soft mud. The water came up to just below her breasts and her wet shirt stuck to her body. William’s gaze snagged on her chest. Yep, keep looking, Lord Bill. Keeeeeep looking.” - Ilona Andrews

16. “The water you kids were playing in, he said, had probably been to Africa and the North Pole. Genghis Khan or Saint Peter or even Jesus may have drunk it. Cleopatra might have bathed in it. Crazy Horse might have watered his pony with it. Sometimes water was liquid. Sometimes it was rock hard- ice. Sometimes it was soft- snow. Sometimes it was visible but weightless- clouds. And sometimes it was completely invisible- vapor- floating up into the the sky like the soals of dead people. There was nothing like water in the world, Jim said. It made the desert bloom but also turned rich bottomland into swamp. Without it we'd die, but it could also kill us, and that was why we loved it, even craved it, but also feared it. Never take water forgranted, Jim said. Always cherish it. Always beware of it.” - Jeannette Walls

17. “Land and water are not really separate things, but they are separate words, and we perceive through words.” - David Rains Wallace

18. “When you sit in silence long enough, you learn that silence has a motion. It glides over you without shape or form, exactly like water. Its color is silver. And silence has a sound you hear only after hours of wading inside it. The sound is soft, like flute notes rising up, like the words of glass speaking. Then there comes a point when you must shatter the blindness of its words, the blindness of its light.” - Anne Spollen

19. “We are all bodies of water, guarding the mystery of our depths, but some of us have more to guard than others.” - Deborah Smith

20. “She loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.” - Holly Black

21. “Father says hot water can be as stimulating as an alcoholic drink and though I never come by one...I can well believe it.” - Dodie Smith

22. “If gold has been prized because it is the most inert element, changeless and incorruptible, water is prized for the opposite reason -- its fluidity, mobility, changeability that make it a necessity and a metaphor for life itself. To value gold over water is to value economy over ecology, that which can be locked up over that which connects all things.” - Rebecca Solnit

23. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him participate in synchronized diving.” - Cuthbert Soup

24. “What an incomparable creature is the sea! ("Absolute Evil")” - Julian Hawthorne

25. “[Jellyfish] are 97% water or something, so how much are they doing? Just give them another 3% and make them water. It's more useful.” - Karl Pilkington

26. “…I keep looking for one more teacher, only to find that fish learn from the water and birds learn from the sky.” (p.275)” - Mark Nepo

27. “Ah, well, then you've never stood on a beach as the waves came crashing in, the water stretching out from you until it's beyond sight, moving and blue and alive and so much bigger than even the black beyond seems because the ocean hides what it contains.” - Patrick Ness

28. “When the young womanleans over the sky,about to water the flowers as well as the weeds,her white front splits openuntil her milk runs.” - Günter Grass

29. “I will lose the habit of stars in the heavens, as frozen water loses the habit of snowflakes. I will take my frozen body, and give it to the young goats that they might graze it.” - Nichita Stanescu

30. “If the private life of the sea could ever be transposed onto paper, it would talk not about rivers or rain or glaciers or of molecules of oxygen and hydrogen, but of the millions of encounters its waters have shared with creatures of another nature.” - Federico Chini

31. “And I feel like the Queen of Water. I feel like water that transforms from a flowing river to a tranquil lake to a powerful waterfall to a freshwater spring to a meandering creek to a salty sea to raindrops gentle on your face to hard, stinging hail to frost on a mountaintop, and back to a river again.” - Maria Virginia Farinango

32. “Too much of water hast thou poor Ophelia, and therefore I forbid my tears.But yet it is our trick, let shame say what it will. when these are gone the women will be out!Adieu my lord, I have a speech of fire that fane would blaze, But that this folly doubts it.” - William Shakespeare

33. “Water belongs to us all. Nature did not make the sun one person's property, nor air, nor water, cool and clear.” - Michael Simpson

34. “[...] I've come to the conclusion that the artist can not justify life or come up with a cogent reason as to why life is meaningful, but the artist can provide you with a cold glass of water on a hot day.” - Woody Allen

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

36. “A pool just isn't the same as the ocean. It has no energy. No life.” - Linda Gerber

37. “You can’t imagine how much I regret what happened. For some reason, becauseof the type of relationship we had, I thought it was an acceptable training exercise; albeit a little extreme. But I’m not going to ask your forgiveness, I don’t want it. I mean to always remember my mistake, so I will never make it again.” (Micah to Kaitlyn)” - Terra Harmony

38. “He stepped forward and took the butterfly hanging around my neck between his two fingers: “This will remind me, both of my mistake and how much I care for you.” He took another step closer so we were only inches apart, and his hand moved to the back of my shoulder where Shawn’s mark stillscarred my skin. “And I hope this will never heal. It will remind me to never take anything for granted; other people’s intentions, your safety, or . . . you.” - Terra Harmony

39. “Camels can go many weeks without drinking anything at all. The notion that they cache water in their humps is pure myth—their humps are made of fat, and water is stored in their body tissues. While other mammals draw water from bloodstreams when faced with dehydration, leading to death by volume shock, camels tap the water in their tissues, keeping their blood volume stable. Though this reduces the camel’s bulk, they can lose up to a third of their body weight with no ill effects, which they can replace astonishingly quickly, as they are able to drink up to forty gallons in a single watering.” (pp.69-70)” - Michael Benanav

40. “Like any stage of the hydrologic process, we have our own peculiarities, our organs making us nothing more than water pools or springs of bizarre shape, filled with pulsing tubes and chambers.” - Craig Childs

41. “Causing any damage or harm to one party in order to help another party is not justice, and likewise, attacking all feminine conduct [in order to warn men away from individual women who are deceitful] is contrary to the truth, just as I will show you with a hypothetical case. Let us suppose they did this intending to draw fools away from foolishness. It would be as if I attacked fire -- a very good and necessary element nevertheless -- because some people burnt themselves, or water because someone drowned. The same can be said of all good things which can be used well or used badly. But one must not attack them if fools abuse them.” - Christine de Pizan

42. “Secrets press inside a person. They press the way water presses at a dam. The secrets and the water, they both want to get out.” - Franny Billingsley

43. “She found out that having something to do prevented you from feeling seasick, and that even a job like scrubbing a deck could be satisfying, if it was done in a seamanlike way. She was very taken with this notion, and later on she folded the blankets on her bunk in a seamanlike way, and put her possessions in the closet in a seamanlike way, and used 'stow' instead of 'tidy' for the process of doing so. After two days at sea, Lyra decided that this was the life for her.” - Philip Pullman

44. “To love a swamp, however, is to love what is muted and marginal, what exists in the shadows, what shoulders its way out of mud and scurries along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised. And sometimes its invisibility is a blessing. Swamps and bogs are places of transition and wild growth, breeding grounds, experimental labs where organisms and ideas have the luxury of being out of the spotlight, where the imagination can mutate and mate, send tendrils into and out of the water.” - Barbara Hurd

45. “There definitely needs to be water on the sidelines for these players, but I also had some Gatorade just in case they were allergic to the water or vice versa.” - john madden

46. “He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Oniton under darkness and of the whispering river. Helen loved the absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her as a man apart, isolated from the world. A real man, who cared for adventure and beauty, who desired to live decently and pay his way, who could have travelled more gloriously through life than the Juggernaut car that was crushing him.” - E.M. Forster

47. “If we come from the water, I conclude that we come from different kinds of it. I will meet a person and in his eyes see an ocean, deep and never ending; then I will meet another person and feel as though I have stepped into a shallow puddle on the street, there is nothing in it. Or maybe some of us come from the water, and some of us come from somewhere else; then it's all a matter of finding those who are the same as us.” - C. JoyBell C.

48. “Geography is the key, the crucial accident of birth. A piece of protein could be a snail, a sea lion, or a systems analyst, but it had to start somewhere. This is not science; it is merely metaphor. And the landscape in which the protein "starts" shapes its end as surely as bowls shape water.” - Annie Dillard

49. “Shadows of cloud lurked in the water, like holes the sun forgot about.” - Markus Zusak

50. “Just about a month from now I'm set adrift, with a diploma for a sail and lots of nerve for oars.” - Richard Halliburton

51. “Beauty soaks reality as water fills a rag.” - Chet Raymo

52. “il n'est ni sagesse, ni calcul, ni science de l'eau quand elle dissout les digues et engloutit les villes des hommes.(chapitre XV)” - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

53. “Понякога се пробуждах посред нощ, с пресъхнала уста, и преди още да изплувам от съня, нещо ми пошушваше да заспя пак, да се гмурна обратно в топлината, в безсъзнателността като в единствено затишие. Но вече си казвах: „Просто съм жадна, достатъчно е да се изправя, да ида до умивалника, да пия вода и пак да заспя”. Ала щом станех, щом видех в огледалото собствения си образ, смътно осветен от уличната лампа, щом хладката вода започнеше да се стича в гърлото ми, тогава отчаянието ме завладяваше и с истинско усещане за физическа болка си лягах отново, зъзнейки. Просвах се по корем, обхванала глава в ръце, и притисках тяло о кревата, сякаш любовта ми към Люк бе горещо и смъртоносно животинче, което в бунта си бих могла да премажа между кожата си и чаршафите. И битката се разразяваше. Паметта, въображението се превръщаха в жестоки врагове. Лицето на Люк, Кан, какво е било и какво би могло да бъде. И неспир отпорът на тялото ми, което бе сънено, на разума ми, който бе отвратен. Вирвах глава, съставях уравнения:”Аз съм аз, Доминик. Обичам Люк, който не ме обича. Несподелена любов, задължителна мъка. Точка.” - Françoise Sagan

54. “It's unpleasantly like being drunk." "What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" "You ask a glass of water.” - Douglas Adams

55. “The return of the rain, beating out time on London's rooftops and pavements. Early morning Zombies sheltering beneath copies of the Standard whilst others ran screaming for cover in doorways because water from the heavens is holy and melts the undead.” - Stephen J. Day

56. “The water is very green and has a sweet taste, both boys wrote in their diaries, at different times.” - Helen Oyeyemi

57. “It is chronic water shortage in the body that causes most diseases of the human body.Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj” - Masaru Emoto

58. “All is as if the world did cease to exist. The city's monuments go unseen, its past unheard, and its culture slowly fading in the dismal sea.” - Nathan Reese Maher

59. “Did Bach ever eatpancakes at midnight?” - Nathan Reese Maher

60. “I steal one glance over my shoulder as soon as we are far from the foreboding luminance of the neon glow, and it is there that my stomach leaps into my throat. Squatting just shy of the light and partially concealed by the shade of an alley is a sinister silhouette beneath a crimson cowl, beaming a demonic smile which spans from cheek to swollen cheek.” - Nathan Reese Maher

61. “I rouse Emily to our guests, as she finishes off our fifteenth snowman by setting the head atop its torso. She stands limp at my direction, pointing out the coming shadows and I cannot help but hear a muffled sigh as she decapitates her latest creation with a single push of her hand.” - Nathan Reese Maher

62. “Do we not each dream of dreams? Do we not dance on the notes of lostmemories? Then are we not each dreamers of tomorrow and yesterday, since dreamsplay when time is askew? Are we not all adrift in the constant sea of trial and when all is done, do we not all yearn for ships to carry us home?” - Nathan Reese Maher

63. “History doesn’t start with a tall buildingand a card with your name written on it, but jokes do. I think someone is takingus for suckers and is playing a mean game.” - Nathan Reese Maher

64. “I’m driving,” Louis-Cesare said, sliding into the low seat as easily as if he’d done it a hundred times. “You’re drunk.”I wished. “I had all of two beers, mostly for the water content.”“If you needed water, why didn’t you drink water?”“I don’t like water.” - Karen Chance

65. “Falling seemed to take forever as the water slowly rose to meet me. The dome of city hall continued to gleam in the distance, with its golden reflection extending to the river water. Strange that I hadn't seen that before.” - P.R. Mason

66. “There is such solace in the mere sight of water. It clothes us delicately in its blowing salt and scent, gossamer items that medicate the poor soul” - Sebastian Barry

67. “When you drop a pebble into a pond, ripples spread out, changing all the water in the pool. The ripples hit the shore and rebound, bumping into one another, breaking each other apart. In some small way, the pond is never the same again.” - Neal Shusterman

68. “Water - a thoroughly underrated drink.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

69. “When skies above were not yet namedNor earth below pronounced by nameThere was water...” - Carol K. Mack and Dinah Mack

70. “Never Forget Who You Are Beacause Its Like Forgetingg Water Is Wet,The Sun Is Bright,Snow Is Cold.Its Rudunent.” - Andrew Fukuda

71. “I am in love, and the river is beginning to ice over. I’d better go drown myself before I freeze to death.
” - Dark Jar Tin Zoo

72. “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

73. “That which abides the fire shall become clean. The water of separation shall purify. The Lord is a consuming fire. That which can't abide the fire shall go through water.” - Andrew Davidson

74. “Can the water in the valleys ever stop and rest?When the water finally reaches the sea, it becomes great waves.” - Francis Harold Cook

75. “It's only water," she said."Tell that to a drowning man," Giddon said.” - Kristin Cashore

76. “Maintaining one’s health in today’s toxic rich environment requires proper rest, hydration, an abundant intake of nutrients, and regular internal cleansing practices” - Gary Hopkins

77. “At dawn the waves looked like mountain ranges tipped with gold as sunbeams slanted low under burgundy clouds.” - David Mitchell