A river is nearly the ultimate symbol for the very essence of change itself. It flows unceasing from one point of being to another, yet continuously occupies the same bed or pathway, and accommodates life’s endings with the same musical grace with which it accommodates life’s beginnings, along with all the muted and explosive moments that surface between the two extremes.

In other words, those great judges, although of course aware that a ship is no more alive than a mill-wheel, thought that not only the law did in fact deal with it as if it were alive, but that it was reasonable that the law should do so. The reader will observe that they do not say simply that it is reasonable on grounds of policy to sacrifice justice to the owner to security for somebody else but that it is reasonable to deal with the vessel as an offending thing. Whatever the hidden ground of policy may be, their thought still clothes itself in personifying language.

All things in the world are created for man, yet all have two purposes. The waters run that we might drink of them, but they are also symbols of the futility of man. They reflect our lives in rushing beauty, birthed in the purity of the mountains. As babes they babble and run, gushing and growing as they mature into strong young rivers. Then they widen and slow until at least they meander, like old men, to join with the sea.

A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure. It offers a necessity of life that must be rationed among those who have power over it.

When the Sea or Waters are put to signify a people or aggregate of nations, then by Islands are meant Cities or Temples by Islands the Courts of Temples for the building of Temples or Altars. By merchant Shipps Buildings, for commerce & profit such as are (trading towns to Nations,) Shops to Trades-men & Temples to Priests. – to Priests. By a navy of war-ships an Army. By rivers ( trains | Armies of men running to & fro such as are Armies [or the afflux of fforreigners]. By overflowing ffloods = Invasions. By the drying up of waters the decay of military strength. 25 By Reeds & Flaggs men By fountains of water cities & towns & by ffishes armies, or people . [Sometimes waters signify riches & then the Sea & Rivers must be interpreted accordingly.]

There is something in the scenery of a broad river equivalent to culture and civilization. Its channel conducts our thoughts as well as bodies to classic and famous ports, and allies us to all that is fair and great.

For real company and friendship, there is nothing outside of the animal kingdom that is comparable to a river.

Rivers perhaps are the only physical features of the world that are at their best from the air. Mountain ranges, no longer seen in profile, dwarf to anthills; seas lose their horizons; lakes have no longer depth but look like bright pennies on the earth's surface; forests become a thin impermanent film, a moss on the top of a wet stone, easily rubbed off. But rivers, which from the ground one usually sees only in cross sections, like a small sample of ribbon — rivers stretch out serenely ahead as far as the eye can reach. Rivers are seen in their true stature.

They tumble down mountain sides; they meander through flat farm lands. Valleys trail them; cities ride them; farms cling to them; roads and railroad tracks run after them — and they remain, permanent, possessive. Next to them, man's gleaming cement roads which he has built with such care look fragile as paper streamers thrown over the hills, easily blown away. Even the railroads seem only scratched in with pen-knife. But rivers have carved their way over the earth's face for centuries and they will stay.

In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics.

But I don't think a river wants anything, except to be itself. Just like anybody and anything. I don't think it claimed a soul. I don't think it's at all vindictive or vicious, just itself. It just seemed very honest. If you hear a river moan, you know it has life.

A lawyer is basically a mouth, like a shark is a mouth attached to a long gut. The business of lawyers is to talk, to interrupt one another, and to devour each other if possible.

Animals were allowed to have lawyers — even insects. The insects (usually fleas, lice or locusts) had to be given three days' notice before the trial and some representatives brought into court, duly notified, and then freed so they could warn others.

Life is as the sea, art a ship in which man conquers life's crushing formlessness, reducing it to a course, a series of swells, tides and wind currents inscribed on a chart.

Even the solid globe is permeated by the living law. It is the most living of creatures. No doubt all creatures that live on its surface are but parasites.