Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Water
Still waters run no mills.
Quoted by Aglionby—Life of Bickerstaff. P. 5.
Pure water is the best of gifts that man to man can bring,
But who am I that I should have the best of anything?
Let princes revel at the pump, let peers with ponds make free,
Whisky, or wine, or even beer is good enough for me.
Anon. In the Spectator, July 31, 1920. Attributed to Hon. G. W. E. Russell, also to Lord Neaves. Several versions given in Notes and Queries, Oct. 23, 1897.
Pouring oil on troubled water.
Bede—Historia Ecclesiastica. Bk. III. Ch. XV. P. 142. (Hussey’s Ed.) Bede says he received the account from Cynemund, who heard it from Utta. Found also in St. Basil—Hexæm. Hom. II. Erasmus—Adagia. Plautus—Pœnulus. V. IV. 66.
A cup of cold Adam from the next purling stream.
Tom Brown—Works. Vol. IV. P. 11.
The miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill.
Burton—Anatomy of Melancholy. Pt. III. Sec. III. Memb. 4. Subsect. 1.
Till taught by pain,
Men really know not what good water’s worth;
If you had been in Turkey or in Spain,
Or with a famish’d boat’s-crew had your berth,
Or in the desert heard the camel’s bell,
You’d wish yourself where Truth is—in a well.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto II. St. 84.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
Coleridge—Ancient Mariner. Pt. II. St. 9.
The world turns softly
Not to spill its lakes and rivers,
The water is held in its arms
And the sky is held in the water.
What is water,
That pours silver,
And can hold the sky?
Hilda Conkling—Water.
Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.
Genesis. XLIX. 4.
Water its living strength first shows,
When obstacles its course oppose.
Goethe—God, Soul, and World. Rhymed Distichs.
And pines with thirst amidst a sea of waves.
Homer—The Odyssey. Bk. XI. L. 722. Pope’s trans.
Water is the mother of the vine,
The nurse and fountain of fecundity,
The adorner and refresher of the world.
Chas. Mackay—The Dionysia.
The rising world of waters dark and deep.
Milton—Paradise Lost. Bk. III. L. 11.
I’m very fond of water:
It ever must delight
Each mother’s son and daughter,—
When qualified aright.
Lord Neaves—I’m very fond of Water.
Caducis
Percussu crebro saxa cavantur aquis.
Stones are hollowed out by the constant dropping of water.
Ovid—Epistolæ Ex Ponto. II. 7. 39.
Est in aqua dulci non invidiosa voluptas.
There is no small pleasure in sweet water.
Ovid—Epistolæ Ex Ponto. II. 7. 73.
Miserum est opus,
Igitur demum fodere puteum, ubi sitis fauces tedet.
It is wretched business to be digging a well just as thirst is mastering you.
Plautus—Mostellaria. II. 1. 32.
A Rechabite poor Will must live,
And drink of Adam’s ale.
Prior—The Wandering Pilgrim.
The noise of many waters.
Psalms. XCIII. 4.
As water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.
II Samuel. XIV. 14.
Honest water, which ne’er left man in the mire.
Timon of Athens. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 59.
More water glideth by the mill
Than wots the miller of.
Titus Andronicus. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 85.
’Tis rushing now adown the spout,
And gushing out below,
Half frantic in its joyousness,
And wild in eager flow.
The earth is dried and parched with heat,
And it hath long’d to be
Released from out the selfish cloud,
To cool the thirsty tree.
Elizabeth Oakes Smith—Water.
And so never ending,
But always descending.
Southey—The Cataract of Lodore.
“How does the Water
Come down at Lodore?”
Southey—The Cataract of Lodore.
’Tis a little thing
To give a cup of water: yet its draught
Of cool refreshment, drain’d by feverish lips,
May give a thrill of pleasure to the frame
More exquisite than when nectarian juice
Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.
Thos. Noon Talfourd—Sonnet III.
How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond recollection presents them to view.
******
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well.
Samuel Woodworth—The Old Oaken Bucket.
How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
As, poised on the curb, it inclined to my lips!
Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it,
The brightest that beauty or revelry sips.
Samuel Woodworth—The Old Oaken Bucket.