Dick Cavett

Statistically, I'd say comedy writers are perhaps the sanest category of show people. And why not? They make big money, and although it's not an easy trade - particularly when you're at your galley oar five days a week - it's easier on the nerves and the psyche than living with the brain-squeezing pressure and cares of being the Star.

American Entertainer

Michael Dirda

In truth, my Anglophilia is fundamentally bookish: I yearn for one of those country house libraries, lined on three walls with mahogany bookshelves, their serried splendor interrupted only by enough space to display, above the fireplace, a pair of crossed swords or sculling oars and perhaps a portrait of some great English worthy.

American Critic

Pliny the Elder

What is there more unruly than the sea, with its winds, its tornadoes, and its tempests? And yet in what department of her works has Nature been more seconded by the ingenuity of man than in this, by his inventions of sails and of oars?

Roman Author

Robert Frost

Two such as you with such a master speed, cannot be parted nor be swept away, from one another once you are agreed, that life is only life forevermore, together wing to wing and oar to oar.

American Poet

Esther Hicks

Most people are rowing against the current of life. Instead of turning the boat around, all they need to do is let go of the oars.

American Author

Kris Kristofferson

You don't paddle against the current, you paddle with it. And if you get good at it, you throw away the oars.

American Musician

Michel de Montaigne

A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.

French Philosopher

Harold S. Geneen

I don't believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them.

British Businessman

Saint Francis de Sales

There are no galley-slaves in the royal vessel of divine love - every man works his oar voluntarily!

Swiss Clergyman

Kate Chopin

There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting as the imprint of an oar upon the water.

Refers to the physical effort of moving a boat with an oar.

Physical Action

Oars are usually used in pairs, one on each side of the boat.

Part of Pair

In sports, 'oar' might indicate the activity of rowing as a competitive sport.

Rowing Sport

Used to describe the act of propelling a boat with oars.

Action Verb

Often associated with leisure activities or romantic scenes in fiction.

Leisure Activity

Figuratively implies taking control of a situation, as in steering a boat.

Metaphor for Control

Can refer to a change in leadership or responsibility.

Leadership Transfer

Use in a conversational context, not to be taken as literal rowing.

Idiom in Context

 little things at twin dam so we've got a little water boatmen and you can see why it's called a boatsman because of that oval-shaped body with those two oars basically they come out and help it swim around underneath the water and it's not every day we get to see them so super

Safari Live - Day 32 PIPE...

 because we've just lost an oar, we're going to plan B'. This is 'Oh we are going to die' because we are going into the big kahuna wave now with no oars. We're taking this little tiny flimsy wooden boat, through the middle of this giant rapid and we realize we're about to flip.

Chasing Rivers, Part 1:...

 which were powered by sails and steered with a single large oar. Canoe building involved the whole community, bringing together the navigators, canoe builders, priests, chanters, and hula dancers. Navigators were keen observers of the natural world.

How did Polynesian...

 Then, when that gave out, I sawed the wheel axles off my spare rowing seat and used those. And then when those gave out, I cannibalized one of the broken oars. I'd never been very good at fixing stuff when I was living my old life,

Roz Savage: Why I'm...

 at the dawn of the 30th of April of 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marbled grain in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once, and with the lines in the spray which an oar raised

Infinity according to...

 If the boatman could hand his oars to a willing passenger, he would be free from his task. Back at the village, the youth declared that there was a mouse gnawing at the root of the tree, and an enormous toad blocking the well.

The tale of the boy who...

 had large warships that controlled the sea, and cargo ships that transported goods along the waterways. These ships were powered by sail and oars and relied on a strong skeleton of internal timbers

What's so special about...

 for the locations of old boatyards, oar makers and ferry stations, imprinting the memory of the boat-building trades that once kept life in the most serene republic gliding along at a steady clip.

Corruption, wealth and...

 And when we lie down in a field or on a couch, drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon, they think we are looking back at them, which makes them lift their oars and fall silent

Billy Collins: Everyday...

 poisoned be of good Cheers get your tubs in your boats pose keep your bow lines all clear now bend to your oars and make your boats fly one thing we dread of keep clear of as I