We are not strong enough to pull the boat upstream, so we must let it float where it will.
"Dot and Tot of Merryland"
L. Frank Baum
Calah, higher up the river, replaced Asshur in the thirteenth century B.C., only to be replaced in turn by Nineveh, a little further still upstream; and ultimately Assyria, though it had taken its name from the southern city, came to be consolidated round a north Mesopotamian capital into a power able to impose vassalage on Babylon and to send imperial raiders to the Mediterranean, and to the Great Lakes of Armenia.
"The Ancient East"
D. G. Hogarth
Even if the sun rises in the west, and even if the rivers run upstream, there is no way to stop the annihilation of the cities.
"Down-with-the-Cities"
Nakashima, Tadashi