Water

"Thousands have lived without love, not one without water."

"Access to a secure, safe and sufficient source of fresh water is a fundamental requirement for the survival, well-being and socio-economic development of all humanity. Yet, we continue to act as if fresh water were a perpetually abundant resource. It is not."

"Thales asserted Water to be the principle of things. For he saw that matter was principally dispensed in moisture, and moisture in water; and it seemed proper to make that the principle of things, in which the virtues and powers of beings, and especially the elements of their generations and restorations, were chiefly found. He saw that the breeding of animals is in moisture ; that the seeds and kernels of plants (as long as they are productive and fresh), are likewise soft and tender; that metals also melt and become fluid, and are as it were concrete juices of the earth, or rather a kind of mineral waters; that the earth itself is fertilised and revived by showers or irrigation, and that earth and mud seem nothing else than the lees and sediment of water; that air most plainly is but the exhalation and expansion of water; nay, that even fire itself cannot be lighted, nor kept in and fed, except with moisture and by means of moisture. He saw, too, that the fatness which belongs to moisture, and which is the support and life of flame and fire, seems a kind of ripeness and concoction of the water."

"The challenge of securing safe and plentiful water for all is one of the most daunting challenges faced by the world today. . . . Too often, where we need water we find guns."

"Perfect water - the dark wind braids the waves. The crazed birds raid the trees. is this our destiny? To join our hands at sea - and slowly sink, and slowly think: This is perfect water, passing over me."

"Rahula, develop meditation that is like water. ... Just as people wash clean things and dirty things, excrement, urine, spittle, pus, and blood in water, and the water is not horrified, humiliated, and disgusted because of that, so too, Rahula, develop meditation that is like water."

"Water is a very good servant, but it is a cruell maister."

"The miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill."

"Till taught by pain, Men really know not what good water's worth; If you had been in Turkey or in Spain, Or with a famish'd boat's-crew had your berth, Or in the desert heard the camel's bell, You'd wish yourself where Truth is—in a well."

"The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities. If they are not there, science cannot create them. If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry."

"Our streams are fouled with an incredible assortment of wastes-domestic, chemical, radioactive, so that our planet, though dominated by seas that envelop three-fourths of its surface, is rapidly becoming a thirsty world."

"Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink."

"Jack Harkness: There you go! I can taste it! Oestrogen. Definitely oestrogen. Take the pill, flush it away, it enters the water cycle. Feminizes the fish. Goes all the way up into the sky then falls all the way back down onto me. Contraceptives in the rain. Love this planet. Still, at least I won't get pregnant. Never doing that again."

"From a drop of water, a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other."

"There's plenty of water in the universe without life, but nowhere is there life without water."

"Only here in this part of the universe, on Earth, is there known to be a place naturally blessed with abundant, liquid water. Not only is this the singular place with an ocean of salt water, but even more significant, it is an ocean that is filled with life that in turn, during some four billion years, has shaped the basic rocks and water of the planet into a strikingly different kind of place, a place unlike any known to exist anywhere else."

"I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god —sullen, untamed and intractable, Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier; Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce; Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges. (I)"

"[Water] is one of the most investigated of all chemicals, but it is still the least understood ... nothing is as complex in its behaviour."

"H2O should be a gas, . . . but it is a liquid. Moreover, when it freezes . . . , its solid form, ice, floats instead of sinking."

"[W]ith Thales... Aristotle ascribes the statement: "Water is the material cause of all things." This... expresses, as Nietzsche... pointed out, three fundamental ideas of philosophy. First, ...the material cause of all things; second, ...that this ...be answered in conformity with reason, without ...myths or mysticism; third, ...that ...it must be possible to reduce everything to one principle."

"Thales' statement was the first expression of... a fundamental substance, of which all other things were transient forms. The word "substance"... was... not interpreted in the purely material sense ...Aristotle ascribes to Thales also ...All things are full of gods. ...[We can] imagine ...Thales took his view ...from meteorological considerations. ...[W]ater can take the most various shapes... ice and snow... vapor, and... clouds. It seems to turn into earth where the rivers form their delta, and it can spring from the earth. Water is the condition for life. Therefore... [as] a fundamental substance, it was natural to think of water first."

"Let's lie down on the bank of the river and listen to water's pulse."

"Endora: Samantha, I will not stand here and be insulted by something which is 94 percent water."

"Water—the mighty, the pure, the beautiful, the unfathomable—where is thy element so glorious as it is in thine own domain, the deep seas ? What an infinity of power is in the far Atlantic, the boundary of two separate worlds, apart like those of memory and of hope ! or in the bright Pacific, whose tides are turned to gold by a southern sun, and in whose bosom sleep a thousand isles, each covered with the verdure, the flowers, and the fruit of Eden ! But, amid all thy hereditary kingdoms, to which hast thou given beauty, as a birthright, lavishly as thou hast to thy favourite Mediterranean ? The silence of a summer night is now sleeping on its bosom, where the bright stars are mirrored, as if in its depths they had another home and another heaven. A spirit, cleaving air midway between the two, might have paused to ask which was sea, and which was sky. The shadows of earth and earthly things, resting omen-like upon the waters, alone shewed which was the home and which the mirror of the celestial host."

"The fountain's low singing is heard on the wind, Like a melody bringing sweet fancies to mind; Some to grieve, some to gladden: around them they cast The hopes of the morrow, the dreams of the past. Away in the distance is heard the vast sound, From the streets of the city that compass it round, Like the echo of mountains, or ocean's deep call; Yet that fountain's low singing is heard over all."

"天下莫柔弱於水。而攻堅強者、莫之能勝。以其無以易之。"

"Don't get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend."

"Water is my eye, most faithful mirror fearless on my breath."

"Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries — stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded forever."

"The rising world of waters dark and deep."

"The water of Zamzam is a cure for whatever (ailment) it is taken for."

"Climate change is expected to exacerbate current stresses on water resources. On a regional scale, mountain snowpack, glaciers, and small ice caps play a crucial role in fresh water availability. Widespread mass losses from glaciers and reductions in snow cover over recent decades are projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century, reducing water availability, hydropower potential, and the changing seasonality of flows in regions supplied by meltwater from major mountain ranges (e.g. Hindu-Kush, Himalaya, Andes), where more than one-sixth of the world’s population currently lives. There is also high confidence that many semi-arid areas (e.g. the Mediterranean Basin, western United States, southern Africa, and northeastern Brazil) will suffer a decrease in water resources due to climate change. In Africa by 2020, between 75 and 250 million people are projected to be exposed to increased water stress due to climate change."

"And have you seen the water that you drink? Is it you who brought it down from the clouds, or is it We who bring it down? If We willed, We could make it bitter, so why are you not grateful?"

"“There really have been no studies that have associated the [pharmaceutical] residues in our water with human health problems,” says Ilene Ruhoy, a pediatric neurologist and environmental toxicologist who has studied the issue. That could be a sign that they pose no threat, but like Wilson, Ruhoy stresses how difficult it is to do these types of studies. “You’re talking about exposure to parts per million, parts per billion. And it’s a combination of drugs. It’s not just one drug in the water, it’s multitudes of. It’s exposure to these very, very minute amounts of these drugs, but many drugs over decades—ten, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years.”"

"Honest water, which ne'er left man in the mire."

"More water glideth by the mill Than wots the miller of."

"'Tis rushing now adown the spout And gushing out below, Half frantic in its joyousness, And wild in eager flow. The earth is dried and parched with heat, And it hath long'd to be Released from out the selfish cloud, To cool the thirsty tree."

"For every person who perishes from the effects of a stimulant, at least a thousand die from the consequences of drinking impure water. This precious fluid, which daily infuses new life into us, is likewise the chief vehicle through which disease and death enter our bodies. The germs of destruction it conveys are enemies all the more terrible as they perform their fatal work unperceived. They seal our doom while we live and enjoy. The majority of people are so ignorant or careless in drinking water, and the consequences of this are so disastrous, that a philanthropist can scarcely use his efforts better than by endeavoring to enlighten those who are thus injuring themselves. By systematic purification and sterilization of the drinking water the human mass would be very considerably increased. It should be made a rigid rule which might be enforced by law to boil or to sterilize otherwise the drinking water in every household and public place. The mere filtering does not afford sufficient security against infection. All ice for internal uses should be artificially prepared from water thoroughly sterilized. The importance of eliminating germs of disease from the city water is generally recognized, but little is being done to improve the existing conditions, as no satisfactory method of sterilizing great quantities of water has yet been brought forward. By improved electrical appliances we are now enabled to produce ozone cheaply and in large amounts, and this ideal disinfectant seems to offer a happy solution of the important question."

"Water is the first principle of everything."

"“There’s been a fair amount of work done in both the U.S. and Canada as well as Europe that documents [pharmaceuticals] in wastewater and in water,” says Joanna Wilson, a biologist at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada. She studies how drugs in the water affect zebrafish, a tiny freshwater fish in the minnow family. More recent data shows that the same types of compounds are in drinking water. One study found several pharmaceuticals in treated tap water, including atenolol (a beta-blocker), carbamazepine (an anticonvulsant), gemfibrozil (an antilipidemic), meprobamate (an antianxiety medication), and phenytoin (an anticonvulsant). The concentrations of these compounds were very low, usually less than 10 nanograms per liter, which is parts per trillion. For reference, one part per trillion is equivalent to about one second in 64 years."

"“We have an aging demographic, and we have an increased reliance, in North America and Europe in particular, with the treatment of health concerns with pharmaceuticals.” This translates to more medicines making their way into the water system, and we need to determine how to deal with it, she says. “Long-term exposures [to pharmaceuticals] are quite a bit different than short term exposures, and we need to really start testing and figuring out if chronic exposures of low doses are relevant for the health of an individual or population of animals.”"

"And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters."

"Verily, in the beginning this [world] was water."

"Mr. Toastmaster, Gentlemen: I feel highly honored indeed to be one of the chosen to say a few words this evening. I am requested to respond to the toast: "Water, the purest and most wonderful thing that was ever created." You, as well as I, have seen it glistening in small globular teardrops on the eyelids of troubled sweethearts and peevish infants, as well as go rushing in torrents down the wrinkled cheeks of the aged ones. And in the early morning I have seen it glistening and sparkling like so many diamonds on the grass blades and the flowers. I have seen it rushing like some wild thing down the rapids of the river, only to flow quietly and lazily where the river widens. I have heard it roar and rumble as it dashed down some steep precipice. And what I have seen—I have seen—Gentlemen, what I want to say is, that as a beverage, it's a failure."

"All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again."

"Behold, God is great, and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out. For he maketh small the drops of water: they pour down rain according to the vapour thereof: Which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly."

"His feet were like fine copper when glowing in a furnace; and his voice was as the sound of many waters."

"He said to me: “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is sitting, mean peoples and crowds and nations and tongues. And the ten horns that you saw and the wild beast, these will hate the prostitute and will make her devastated and naked, and they will eat up her flesh and completely burn her with fire."

"Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel."

"For waters will burst forth in the wilderness, And streams in the desert plain. The heat-parched ground will become a reedy pool, And the thirsty ground springs of water. In the lairs where jackals rested, There will be green grass and reeds and papyrus."

"Counsel in the heart of a man is as deep waters, but the man of discernment is one that will draw it up."

"Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: thou preparest them corn, when thou hast so provided for it."

"The noise of many waters."

"As water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again."

"Still waters run no mills."

"Pure water is the best of gifts that man to man can bring, But who am I that I should have the best of anything? Let princes revel at the pump, let peers with ponds make free, Whisky, or wine, or even beer is good enough for me."

"Pouring oil on troubled water."

"A cup of cold Adam from the next purling stream."

"The world turns softly Not to spill its lakes and rivers, The water is held in its arms And the sky is held in the water. What is water, That pours silver, And can hold the sky?"

"Water its living strength first shows, When obstacles its course oppose."

"And pines with thirst amidst a sea of waves."

"Water is the mother of the vine, The nurse and fountain of fecundity, The adorner and refresher of the world."

"I'm very fond of water: It ever must delight Each mother's son and daughter,— When qualified aright."

"Caducis Percussu crebro saxa cavantur aquis."

"Est in aqua dulci non invidiosa voluptas."

"Miserum est opus, Igitur demum fodere puteum, ubi sitis fauces tedet."

"A Rechabite poor Will must live, And drink of Adam's ale."

"And so never ending, But always descending."

"How does the Water Come down at Lodore?"

"'Tis a little thing To give a cup of water: yet its draught Of cool refreshment, drain'd by feverish lips, May give a thrill of pleasure to the frame More exquisite than when nectarian juice Renews the life of joy in happiest hours."

"How dear to this heart are the scenes of my childhood, When fond recollection presents them to view. * * * * * * The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket, which hung in the well."

"How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it, As, poised on the curb, it inclined to my lips! Not a full blushing goblet could tempt me to leave it, The brightest that beauty or revelry sips."

"Ei vesi haavaa tee. (Florinus) (VKS)"

"Kyllä vesi reiän löytää. (Kangasala, Tavastia) (RRO)"

"Ves on lian liäkär. (Rautalampi, Savonia) (KRA)"