My city is built on the banks of a river. I try to spend time each day walking, hiking in nature and most often I seek to walk beside river, stream or lake. My city has suffered major flooding in the recent past and even in the midst of a 2 year drought we had flooding in the late spring. Water too much , too little. Water is life. water can be death. Lack of water can be death. Water is soft and free in it's form yet it is phenomenally powerful and capable of great destruction. Our planet , our bodies and primarily water. So today some thought and pictures on the subject of water.



   “Water is the driving force in nature.”  Leonardo da Vinci

“In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference”

 Rachel Carson quotes

“It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things.”Nicholas Sparks

Rivers are roads which move, and which carry us whither we desire to go.  ~Blaise Pascal

 

 
''A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature.  It is earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.'' ~Henry David Thoreau

But I do see the good side of water now. How good it is when you're really thirsty, how it glitters and gurgles! How alive it is! ~G.K. Chesterton

"If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water."

Loran Eisley

 '' We need a new global culture that finds the existence of millions of thirsty people thoroughly and immediately unacceptable."

Jean-Michel Cousteau

"Water is critical for sustainable development, including environmental integrity and the alleviation of poverty and hunger, and is indispensable for human health and well-being."

United Nations

 “Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.” Norman Maclean

 

Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it.”

Lao Tzu

'' You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you."

Heraclitus of Ephesus

 “Water is life's mater and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water.” Albert Szent-Gyorgyi 

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

W.H. Auden

"We have the ability to provide clean water for every man, woman and child on the Earth. What has been lacking is the collective will to accomplish this. What are we waiting for? This is the commitment we need to make to the world, now."

Jean-Michel Cousteau

"Water links us to our neighbor in a way more profound and complex than any other."

John Thorson

"A river is more than an amenity, it is a treasure."

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

"By means of water, we give life to everything."

Koran, 21:30

 ''Rivers, ponds, lakes  and streams - they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do - they all contain truths.'' Muhammad Ali

 “The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire.” Pamela Hansford Johnson

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of the oceans.  ~Kahlil Gibran