79 Water Quotes That Teach Us about the Flow of Life

Water is one of the most essential, life-giving resources on earth. The more we study it, the more it fascinates us. It holds immense power and can also teach us about the flow of life itself. To learn about the lessons that water can teach us, here are 79 profound quotes.

Water is an extraordinary and powerful substance that exists in various forms throughout the earth. It is also one of the most scarce resources that's supply continues to run out. Many religions and philosophies reference water to teach us several lessons about how to think and behave throughout our lives.

Water can teach us a lot, from how to power through obstacles, be still and surrender, discover more about ourselves, heal from within, and learn more about ourselves -- among other valuable nuggets of wisdom.

We have gathered some of the most profound lessons from water in these 79 quotes. Just go with the flow and check them out.

Henry David Thoreau’s quote: “Life in us is like the water in a river.” | Source: AmoDays

QUOTES ABOUT THE POWER AND BEAUTY OF WATER

“A drop of water, if it could write out its own history, would explain the universe to us.” — Lucy Larcom

“The fall of dropping water wears away the Stone.” — Lucretius

"Many a calm river begins as a turbulent waterfall, yet none hurtles and foams all the way to the sea.” — Mikhail Lermontov

“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.” — Hermann Hesse

“Pure water is the world’s first and foremost medicine.” — Slovakian Proverb

Langston Hughes’s quote: "The sea is a desert of waves, A wilderness of water." | Image: AmoDays

“All water has a perfect memory and is trying to get back to where it was.” — Toni Morrison

“Water is the lifeblood of our bodies, our economy, our nation, and our well-being.” — Stephen Johnson

“No, no, we are not satisfied and will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

“Water is the mother of the vine, the nurse and fountain of fecundity, the adorner, and refresher of the world.” — Charles Mackay

Debasish Mridha’s quote: "Water is soft and humble, but it is the most powerful and is the most endurable." | Image: AmoDays

“We never know the worth of water till the well is dry.” — Thomas Fuller

“Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.” — Lao Tzu

“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.” ― W. H. Auden

“Water is the most critical resource issue of our lifetime and our children’s lifetime. The health of our waters is the principal measure of how we live on the land.” — Luna Leopold

A Slovakian Proverb: “Pure water is the world’s first and foremost medicine.” | Image: AmoDays

"The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book- a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them with a voice." — Mark Twain

"Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water." — Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

"Water is soft and humble, but it is the most powerful and is the most endurable." — Debasish Mridha

“Ocean, n. A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man — who has no gills.” ― Ambrose Bierce

Holly Black’s quote: “She loves the serene brutality of the ocean, loves the electric power she felt with each breath of wet, briny air.” | Image: AmoDays

"Water, like religion and ideology, has the power to move millions of people... And all people, everywhere and every day, need it." — Mikhail Gorbachev

"Beauty soaks reality as water fills a rag.” — Chet Raymo

“In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.” — Leonardo da Vinci

"The water tells none of its secrets." — Nikos Engonopoulos

Mikhail Gorbachev’s quote: "Water, like religion and ideology, has the power to move millions of people... And all people, everywhere and every day, need it." | Image: AmoDays

“Reading poetry is like undressing before a bath. You don't undress out of fear that your clothes will become wet. You undress because you want the water to touch you. You want to completely immerse yourself in the feeling of the water and to emerge anew.” ― Kamand Kojouri

"No water, no life, no blue, no green." — Sylvia Earle

QUOTES ON WATER AND THE ART OF SURRENDER

“Always be like water. Float in the times of pain or dance like waves along with the wind which touches its surface.” — Santosh Kalwar

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.” — Rumi

“Water is the most perfect traveler because when it travels, it becomes the path itself!” — Mehmet Muratildan

John O’Donohue’s quote: “I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” | Image: AmoDays

“Anger is like flowing water; there's nothing wrong with it as long as you let it flow. Hate is like stagnant water; anger that you denied yourself the freedom to feel, the freedom to flow; water that you gathered in one place and left to forget. Stagnant water becomes dirty, stinky, disease-ridden, poisonous, deadly; that is your hate. On flowing, water travels little paper boats; paper boats of forgiveness. Allow yourself to feel anger, allow your waters to flow, along with all the paper boats of forgiveness. Be human.” ― C. JoyBell C.

“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” ― Jon Kabat-Zinn

"The idea is that flowing water never goes stale, so just keep on flowing." — Bruce Lee

“I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” — John O’Donohue

“Life in us is like the water in a river.” — Henry David Thoreau

Santosh Kalwar’s quote: “Always be like water. Float in the times of pain or dance like waves along with the wind which touches its surface.” | Image: AmoDays

“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

"If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend." — Bruce Lee

QUOTES ON WATER AND OUR INNER POWER

“A river cuts through rock not because of its power but because of its persistence.” — Jim Watkins

“Love, like a river, will cut a new path whenever it meets an obstacle.” — Crystal Middlemas

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

Anamika Mishra’s quote: “Run wild and free like a waterfall.” | Image: AmoDays

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

"When life places stones in your path, be the water. A persistent drop of water will wear away even the hardest stone." — Autumn Morning Star

“Run wild and free like a waterfall.” — Anamika Mishra

“You never really know what's coming. A small wave, or maybe a big one. All you can really do is hope that when it comes, you can surf over it, instead of drown in its monstrosity.”― Alysha Speer

"You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water." — Rabindranath Tagore

Edwin Louis Cole’s quote: "You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there." | Image: AmoDays

"Being a fish out of water is tough, but that's how you evolve." — Kumail Nanjiani

"Drink the waters meant to drown you." — Nelou Keramati

"You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there." ― Edwin Louis Cole

QUOTES ABOUT WATER, HEALING, AND SELF-DISCOVERY

“One cannot reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.” — Lao Tzu

“It's good to leave each day behind, like flowing water, free of sadness. Yesterday is gone, and its tale told." — Rumi

E.E. Cummings’ quote: “For whatever we lose… it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.” | Image: AmoDays

“There is a waterfall in every dream. Cool and crystal clear, it falls gently on the sleeper, cleansing the mind and soothing the soul.” — Virginia Alison

“Do not feel sad for your tears as rocks never regret the waterfalls.” — Munia Khan

“I have seen the sea when it is storm and wild when it is quiet and serene, when it is dark and moody. And in all these moods, I see myself.” — Martin Buxbaum

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea.” — Isak Dinesen

“I'm always happy when I'm surrounded by water; I think I'm a mermaid or I was a mermaid. The ocean makes me feel really small, and it makes me put my whole life into perspective… it humbles you and makes you feel almost like you’ve been baptized. I feel born again when I get out of the ocean.” ― Beyoncé Knowles

Jane Austen’s quote: "Where the waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give." | Image: AmoDays

“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

“For whatever we lose… it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.” — E.E. Cummings

"Where the waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give." — Jane Austen

"Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water." — Christopher Morley

Yoko Ono’s quote: “You are water I’m water we’re all water in different containers that’s why it’s so easy to meet someday we’ll evaporate together.” | Image: AmoDays

WATER QUOTES FOR REFLECTION AND CONTEMPLATION

“You swam in a river of chance and coincidence. You clung to the happiest accidents—the rest you let float by.” — David Wroblewski

“You can not hide on an island and expect that water will not find you.” — Chuck Bridges

“The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.” — Voltaire

"All rivers, even the most dazzling, those that catch the sun in their course, all rivers go down to the ocean and drown. And life awaits man as the sea awaits the river.” — Simone Schwarz-Bart

"Grace is finding a waterfall when you were only looking for a stream." — Vanessa Hunt

Hermann Hesse’s quote from "Siddhartha": "Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” | Image: AmoDays

“Water is sufficient…the spirit moves over water.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

“You are water, I’m water, we’re all water in different containers, that’s why it’s so easy to meet someday, we’ll evaporate together.” ― Yoko Ono

"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

Criss Jami’ quote: “An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate.” | Image: AmoDays

“Do not seek water, get thirst.” ― Rumi

“If snow melts down to water, does it still remember being snow?” ― Jennifer McMahon

“An over-indulgence of anything, even something as pure as water, can intoxicate.” ― Criss Jami

“Mist to mist, drops to drops. For water thou art, and unto water shalt thou return.” ― Kamand Kojouri

Wallace Steven’s quote: “Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container.” | Image: AmoDays

“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.

“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, Chime

“In a swamp, as in meditation, you begin to glimpse how elusive, how inherently insubstantial, how fleeting our thoughts are, our identities. There is magic in this moist world, in how the mind lets go, slips into sleepy water, circles and nuzzles the banks of palmetto and wild iris, how it seeps across dreams, smears them into the upright world, rots the wood of treasure chests, welcomes the body home." ― Barbara Hurd

"In deep waters, you encounter only the wise and the brave; in shallow waters, the ignorant and the coward!" ― Mehmet Murat Ildan

Friedrich Nietzsche’s quote: “Water is sufficient…the spirit moves over water.” | Image: AmoDays

Water can teach us a lot about life. It is so dynamic that it can gently flow through and around obstacles. It is also powerful enough to destroy everything in its path — that way, it is entirely open to change.

We hope these quotes helped you reflect on the many points water offers. Its value to our lives and society is undeniable. In addition to relishing in its life-giving nature, whenever we face some challenges in life, we can always ask ourselves: how would water react?

If these quotes helped you reflect on what water can teach us, you would love these fire quotes to set your soul alight.