“One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver—not aloud, but to himself—that ten thousand River Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at.”
― Life on the Mississippi
Mississippi River, New Orleans
Bill Chance 
That’s one of my favorite quotations. I believe I first encountered it in John Barry’s Rising Tide. It always recalls T.S. Eliot’s lines about the river in “The Dry Salvages” — “I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god…”
“strong brown god” – what a great description of a river.
If you’re not familiar with Eliot’s whole stanza, it’s really worth a read. Gives me chills every time.