Nature

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

"The sunbeams dropped Their gold, and, passing in porch and niche, Softened to shadows, silvery, pale, and dun, As if the very Day paused and grew Eve."

"Parting day Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new colour as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till 'tis gone and all is gray."

"'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters, like a veil, Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown Of one whose hate is mask'd but to assail."

"Beauteous Night lay dead Under the pall of twilight, and the love-star sickened and shrank."

"As pensive evening deepens into night."

"Twilight's soft dews steal o'er the village-green, With magic tints to harmonize the scene Stilled is the hum that through the hamlet broke When round the nuns of their ancient oak The peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play, And games and carols closed the busy day."

"Twilight, a timid fawn, went glimmering by. And Night, the dark-blue hunter, followed fast."

"Night was drawing and closing her curtain up above the world, and down beneath it."

"Her feet along the dewy hills Are lighter than blown thistledown, She bears the glamour of one star Upon her violet crown."

"From that high mount of God whence light and shade Spring both, the face of brightest heaven had changed To grateful twilight."

"Our lady of the twilight, She hath such gentle hands, So lovely are the gifts she brings From out the sunset-lands, So bountiful, so merciful, So sweet of soul is she. And over all the world she draws Her cloak of shanty."

"Then the nun-like twilight came, violet-vestured and still, And the night's first star outshone afar on the eve of Bunker Hill."

"th' approach of night The skies yet blushing with departing light, When falling dews with spangles deck'd. the glade, And the low sun had lengthen'd evry shade."

"The sun is set, and in his latest beams Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold, Slowly upon the amber air unrolled, The falling mantle of the Prophet seems."

"The twilight is sad and cloudy, The wind blows wild and free, And like the wings of sear-birds Hash the white caps of the sea."

"The gloaming comes, the day is spent, The sun goes out of sight, And painted is the Occident With purple sanguine bright."

"The west is broken into bars Of orange, gold, and gray, Gone is the sun, come are the stars, And night infolds the day."

"Sweet shadows of twilight' how calm their repose, While the dewdrops fall soft in the breast of the rose! How blest to the toiler his hour of release When the vesper is heard with its whisper of peace!"

"Dim eclipse, disastrous twilight."

"Ah, County Guy, the hour is nigh, The sun has left the lea, The orange flower perfumes the bower, The breeze is on the sea."

"The lengthening shadows wait The first pale stars of twilight."

"Now the soft hour Of walking comes, for him who lonely loves To seek the distant hills, and there converse With Nature, there to harmonize his heart, And in pathetic Song to breathe around The harmony to others."

"Fair Venus shines Even in the eve of day, with sweetest beam Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood Of softened radiance from her dewy locks."

"Twilight, ascending slowly from the east, Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of day, Night followed, clad with stars."

"The summer day is closed, the sun is set Well they have done their office, those bright hours, The latest of whose tram goes softly out In the red west."

"The hour before the heavenly-harness'd team Begins his golden progress in the east."

"Look, the gentle day Before the wheels of Phoebus, round about Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey."

"How lovely are the portals of the night, When stars come out to watch the daylight die."

"The weary sun hath made a golden set, And, by the bright track of his fiery car, Gives signal of a goodly day to-morrow."

"Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table;"

"Alone, what did Bloom feel? The cold of interstellar space, thousands of degrees below freezing point or the absolute zero of Fahrenheit, Centigrade or Réaumur: the incipient intimations of proximate dawn."

"Twilight remained, a fairy half-light in which all things looked much more charming than they really were."

"But look, the morn, in russet mantle clad, Walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill."