Water Quotes, Etc. - Pausing to Think
Water Quotes (newly added quotes first) :: River Quotes :: Poems/Verses (all) :: Movies and Wells (all - sorted by date)
"In the Western United States, water flows uphill to money."
Glen Sanders
"We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one."
Jacques Cousteau
"The solution to our water problems is more rain."
Attributed to Mark Twain (as Leslie says "aren't they all?")
"Water is the lifeblood of our bodies, our economy, our nation and our well-being."
Stephen Johnson, EPA Administrator, upon dedicating the new desalination plant at El Paso, TX, 2007
"A lake is the landscape's most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth's eye; looking into which the beholder measure the depth of his own nature."
Henry David Thoreau
"To understand water is to understand the cosmos, the marvels of nature, and life itself. "
Masaru Emoto in "The Hidden Messages in Water"
"Everyone understands that water is essential to life. But many are only just now beginning to grasp how essential it is to everything in life – food, energy, transportation, nature, leisure, identity, culture, social norms, and virtually all the products used on a daily basis."
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
"All the waters run to the sea and yet the sea is not full, and from the
place where they began, thither they return again."
Ecclesiastes
"Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, From Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939
"If you gave me several million years, there would be nothing that did not grow in beauty if it were surrounded by water."
Jan Erik Vold, 1970
"In their efforts to provide a sufficiency of water where there was not one, men have resorted to every expedient from prayer to dynamite. The story of their efforts is, on the whole, one of pathos and tragedy, of a few successes and many failures"
Walter Prescott Webb (The Great Plains)
"It is hereby recognized that a need exists for the creation of special districts for the proper management of the groundwater resources of the state; for the conservation of groundwater resources; for the prevention of economic deterioration; for associated endeavors within the state of Kansas through the stabilization of agriculture; and to secure for Kansas the benefit of its fertile soils and favorable location with respect to national and world markets. It is the policy of this act to preserve basic water use doctrine and to establish the right of local water users to determine their destiny with respect to the use of the groundwater insofar as it does not conflict with the basic laws and policies of the state of Kansas. It is, therefore, declared that in the public interest it is necessary and advisable to permit the establishment of groundwater management districts."
Legislative declaration of the Kansas Groundwater Management District Act, K.S.A. 82a-1020
"Water is the only substance on earth that is naturally present in three different forms - as a liquid, a solid (ice) and as a gas (water vapor)."
Author unknown
"Battles over water in the West are always about something more. At their most elemental, they are about survival."
Bettina Boxall, 2007
"There is too little public recognition of how much we all depend upon farmers as stewards of our soil, water and wildlife resources."
John F. Kennedy
"You could write the story of man's growth in terms of his epic concerns with water."
Bernard Frank
"Man is a complex being; he makes deserts bloom and lakes die."
Gil Stern
"And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters"
"Resolution and Independence", Henry Wordsworth
"And gentle winds and waters near, make music to the lonely ear."
"Parisina", Byron
"We think of our land and water and human resources not as static and sterile possessions but as life giving assets to be directed by wise provisions for future days."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
"There has been a lot said about the sacredness of our land which is our body; and the values of our culture which is our soul; but water is the blood of our tribes, and if its life-giving flow is stopped, or it is polluted, all else will die and the many thousands of years of our communal existence will come to an end."
Frank Tenorio, 1978
"Anyone who can solve the problems of water will be worthy of two Nobel prizes - one for peace and one for science."
John F. Kennedy
"A man from the west will fight over three things: water, women and gold, and usually in that order."
Senator Barry Goldwater, AZ
"Water is King, and he is Knight who uses it successfully to make two blades grow where nature produced none."
J. S. Sherman, 1894. Proceedings of the 2nd Annual Convention of the Kansas Irrigation Association
"Til taught by pain, men really know not what good water is worth."
From "Don Juan" by Byron
"Man - despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments - owes his existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains."
Unknown author
"I have left almost to the last the magic of water, an element which owing to its changefulness of form and mood and colour and to the vast range of its effects is ever the principal source of landscape beauty, and has like music a mysterious influence over the mind."
Sir George Sitwell (On the Making of Gardens)
"I have little need to remind you that water has become one of our major national concerns."
Ezra Taft Benson, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
(Opening sentence of the Foreword of the 1955 Yearbook of Agriculture - dedicated entirely to water)
"Water is life's matter and matrix, mother and medium. There is no life without water."
Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Hungarian biochemist and Nobel Prize Winner for Medicine.
"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
"Don't you realize that the sea is the home of water? All water is off on a journey unless it's in the sea, and it's homesick, and bound to make its way home someday."
American folklorist and writer Zora Neale Hurston (1903-1960)
"Civilization has been a permanent dialogue between human beings and water."
Paolo Lugari (founder of the Gaviotas Community in Colombia)
"If we lived in a desert and our lives depended on a water supply that came out of a steel tube, we would inevitably watch that tube and talk about it understandingly. No citizen would need to be lectured about his duty toward its care and spurred to help if it were in danger. Teachers of civics in such a community might develop a sense of public responsibility, not only by describing the remote beginnings of the commonwealth, but also how that tube got built, how long it would last, how vital the intake might be if the rainfall on the forested mountains nearby ever changed in seasonal habit ot amount. It would be a most unimaginative person, or a stupid one, who could not see the vital relation between the mountains, the forests, that tube and himself."
Isaiah Bowman, "Headwaters Control and Use - Influence of Vegetation on Land-Water Relationships" 1937.
"Water is the most basic of all resources. Civilizations grew or withered depending on its availability."
Dr. Nathan W. Snyder, Ralph M. Parsons Engineering
"If we could ever competitively, at a cheap rate, get fresh water from saltwater, ..(this) would be in the long-range interests of humanity which could really dwarf any other scientific accomplishments."
John F. Kennedy
"Rain is a blessing when it falls gently on parched fields, turning the earth green, causing the birds to sing."
Donald Worster, "Meeting the Expectations of the Land", 1984
"Throughout the history of literature, the guy who poisons the well
has been the worst of all villains..."
-- Author unknown --
"Thousands have lived without love, not one without water."
W.H. Auden
"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea."
Tagore - a Bengali poet and novelist
"Water should not be judged by its history, but by its quality"
Dr Lucas Van Vuuren, National Institute of Water Research, South Africa
"A waster of water is a waster of better."
Old Irish Adage
"Water is a very good servant, but it is a cruel master."
C.G.D. Roberts, "Adrift in America", 1891
"The wise man of Miletus thus declared the first of things is water"
J.S. Blackie, 1877
"Nothing on earth is so weak and yielding as water, but for breaking down the firm and strong it has no equal."
Lao-Tsze
"In sweet water there is a pleasure ungrudged by anyone."
Ovid, 13 A.D.
"Solid stone is just sand and water...Sand and water and a million years gone by."
Beth Nielsen Chapman
"The noblest of the elements is water"
Pindar, 476 B.C.
"If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water."
Loran Eisley (Anthropologist), The Immense Journey, 1957
"Aquifer: a mysterious, magical and poorly defined area beneath the surface of the earth that either yields or withholds vast or lesser quantities of standing/flowing water, the quantity and/or quality of which is dependent on who is describing it or how much money may be at stake."
R. Radden, "Watershed Resources", Jan. 2002
"Water helped ancient man learn those first lessons about the rights of others and responsibility to a larger society.... It became part of the moral and mental legacy parents passed on to their children."
M. Meyer, "Water in the Hispanic Southwest"
"Irrigation of the land with seawater desalinated by fusion power is ancient. It's called rain."
Michael McClary
"Whiskey is for drinking; water is for fighting over."
Unknown (widely attributed to Mark Twain, but this is under dispute)
"You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you."
Heraclitus of Ephesus
"Water is sometimes sharp and sometimes strong, sometimes acid and sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet and sometimes thick or thin, sometimes it is seen bringing hurt or pestilence, sometime health-giving, sometimes poisonous. It suffers change into as many natures as are the different places through which it passes. And as the mirror changes with the colour of its subject, so it alters with the nature of the place, becoming noisome, laxative, astringent, sulfurous, salty, incarnadined, mournful, raging, angry, red, yellow, green, black, blue, greasy, fat or slim. Sometimes it starts a conflagration, sometimes it extinguishes one; is warm and is cold, carries away or sets down, hollows out or builds up, tears or establishes, fills or empties, raises itself or burrows down, speeds or is still; is the cause at times of life or death, or increase or privation, nourishes at times and at others does the contrary; at times has a tang, at times is without savor, sometimes submerging the valleys with great floods. In time and with water, everything changes."
Leonardo da Vinci
"When you drink the water, remember the spring."
Chinese Proverb
"When the well is dry, we learn the worth of water."
Benjamin Franklin
"Children of a culture born in a water-rich environment, we have never really learned how important water is to us. We understand it, but we do not respect it."
William Ashworth, Nor Any Drop to Drink, 1982
"Don't empty the water jar until the rain falls."
Philippine proverb
"The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives."
American Indian Saying
"The stone in the water knows nothing of the hill which lies parched in the sun."
African Proverb
"The highest good is like water. Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive. It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao."
Excerpt from the Tao Te Ching, chapter 8
"By means of water, we give life to everything."
Koran, 21:30
"It is a fascinating and provocative thought that a body of water deserves to be considered as an organism in its own right."
Lyall Watson, Supernature
"Water links us to our neighbor in a way more profound and complex than any other."
John Thorson
"Water is the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing; it sucks out its innermost secrets and brings them to our very lips."
Jean Giraudoux
Poem by Gene Lindberg (published on front page of the Denver Post Weekly Magazine - February 5, 1933)
The streams come tumbling, joining as they flow
To send a river winding toward the sea.
I listen, and the river speaks to me.
It tells of meadows on a thirsty plain;
Of gardens blooming where there is no rain;
Of mighty cities built upon its banks;
Of living things that owe the river thanks.
The waters speak to me, and hurry on,
Eager to come and eager to be gone.
Almost it seems as if the river knew
How many things there are for it to do.
Sometimes it pauses, to lay up a store
of liquid wealth in lake and reservoir,
Then leaps a dam and hastens on again,
Turning a wheel to light the homes of men.
The river speaks, and deserts cease to be;
Wide fields grow green, and ships go down to the sea,
I hear the water singing as it goes:
"Let life go on, because the river flows."
From "In the Trail of the Mind, American Indian Poems" (Eskimo) Edited by John Bierhurst
Has sent me adrift,
It moves me as the weed in a great river,
Earth and the great weather Move me,
Have carried me away
And move my inward parts with joy.
Excerpt from the Poem by Samuel Coleridge, 1798
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
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
Civilization well,
It wets my foot, but prettily,
It chills my life, but wittily,
It is not disconcerted,
It is not broken-hearted:
Well used, it decketh joy,
Adorneth, doubleth joy:
Ill used, it will destroy,
In perfect time and measure
With a face of golden pleasure
Elegantly destroy.
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
But tell me, nymphs! what power devine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?
Only a third is meant for you and me;
Two-thirds are taken by the growing things
Or vanish Heavenward on vapour's wings:
Nor does it mathematically fall
With social equity on one and all.
The population's habit is to grow
In every region where the water's low:
Nature is blamed for failings that are Man's,
And well-run rivers have to change their plans.
Here is the land where life is written in water
The West is where the water was and is
Father and son of old mother and daughter
Following rivers up immensities
of range and desert thirsting the sundown ever
Crossing a hill to climb a hill still drier
Naming tonight a city by some river
a different name from last night's camping fire
Look to the green within the mountain cup
look to the prairie parched for water lack
Look to the sun that pulls the oceans up
look to the cloud that gives the oceans back
Look to your heart and may your wisdom grow
to power of lightning and to peace of snow
Water's a sociological oddity,
Water's a pasture for science to forage in,
Water's a mark of our dubious origin,
Water's a link with a distant futurity,
Water's a symbol of ritual purity.
Water is politics, Water's religion,
Water is just about anyone's pigeon.
Water is frightening, water's endearing,
Water's a lot more than mere engineering.
Water is tragical, water is comical,
Water is far from Pure Economical,
So studies of water, though free from aridity
Are apt to produce a good deal of turbidity.
The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching-wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.
YOU may talk o' gin an' beer
When you're quartered safe out 'ere,
An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;
But if it comes to slaughter
You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.
The words on labels tell this tale,
In recipes, in ads by mail,
And chances are, at work or play,
You'll see these famous words today -
Just add water.
You'd be surprised how many things
Are dry and useless till one brings
The magic liquid known to all;
You use it when you heed the call -
Just add water.
To illustrate and prove this thought,
Remember all the food you've bought
On which was printed, clear and bright,
Instructions that make cooking light -
Just add water.
You now can buy
Dried fruits, or soups, or tasty cakes;
To powdered milk and frozen juices,
To products with a thousand uses,
Just add water.
Imagine for a minute, please,
An arid wasteland, bare of trees;
This could be farmland, rich and good
And quite productive if we could
Just add water.
What turns cement into concrete?
What changes seed to golden wheat?
No other words now known to man
Can answer that: but these words can:
Just add water.
All day I face the barren waste without the taste of water,
Cool water.
Old Dan and I with throats burned dry and souls that cry for water,
Cool water.
The nights are cool and I'm a fool each stars a pool of water,
Cool water.
But with the dawn I'll wake and yawn and carry on to water,
Cool water.
(Chorus)
Keep a movin' Dan, don't you listen to him Dan, he's a devil not a man
and he spreads the burnin' sand with water.
Dan can't you see that big green tree where the waters runnin' free
and it's waiting there for me and you.
Water, cool water.
The shadows sway and seem to say tonight we pray for water,
Cool water.
And way up there He'll hear our prayer and show us where there's water,
Cool Water.
Dan's feet are sore he's yearning for just one thing more than water,
Cool water.
Like me, I guess, he'd like to rest where there's no quest for water,
Cool water.
Movies and T.V. Shows with Water Wells Involved
| Title | Medium | Date | Synopsis | Players |
| Barbie, the Island Princess | Movie | 2007 | Wicked Queen Ariana gets mud on her gown and goes to the well to clean it. Prince Luciano and his father the King wonder how she knew the well was there since she's never been on the royal grounds before. | Barbie |
| The Painted Veil | Movie | 2006 | The water well of a small chinese village must be shut down to fight a cholera outbreak. Tensions rise as an English doctor works to fight the epidemic and makes decisions that counter local customs. | Ed Norton, Naomi Watts |
| The Da Vinci Code | Movie | 2006 | In this religious mystery, Langdon is called on to interpret cryptic symbols at a murder scene. The events that unfold will shake the very foundations of Christianity. In a flashback, we discover that Langdon has a childhood well experience that affects him deeply. | Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou |
| Upside of Anger | Movie | 2005 | The husband disappears - you know where. | Joan Allen, Kevin Costner |
| Wolf Creek | Movie | 2005 | Horror visits 3 travellers in the Aussie outback. Part of the horror is in the old dry water well. This movie is not for the timid. | Kestie Morassi, Nathan Phillips |
| The Ring Two | Movie | 2005 | Six months after The Ring, there is more evil lurking in the well. | Naomi Watts, Simon Baker, Sissy Spacek, David Dorfman |
| Cold Mountain | Movie | 2003 | Civil War era movie. In one scene future insight is gained by looking backwards into a hand dug well and interpreting the reflections on the water. | Jude Law, Renee Zellweger, Nicole Kidman |
| The Ring | Movie | 2002 | A journalist investigates a mysterious videotape which seems to cause the death of anyone in a week of viewing it. A hand dug well plays a prominent role. This is a re-make of a 1998 Japanese movie of the same name. | Naomi Watts, Martin Henderson, David Dorfman | Lourdes | T.V. Movie | 2001 | A sick girl (Bernadette) gets instructions from the Virgin Mary to dig a wellspring which will produce healing waters. | Angele Osinsky |
| Erin Brockovich | Movie | 2000 | Erin works for a small law firm when she discovers a cover-up involving contaminated groundwater being used by nearby townspeople from their wells. | Julia Roberts, Albert Finney |
| A Civil Action | Movie | 1998 | The civil lawsuit over contaminated groundwater in the public water supply wells for Woburn, MA. | John Travolta, Robert Duvall, John Lithgow |
| The Well | Movie | 1997 | Hester, her father and a housekeeper live remotely in the Aussie outback. Hester accidently runs over a man who she and the housekeeper throw down the well. A psychodrama. | Pamela Rabe, Paul Chubb, Miranda Otto |
| Twister | Movie | 1996 | You might say the well saves the lives of our hero and heroine in this movie as they work to gain scientific insights on tornadoes. | Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton |
| Water | Movie | 1995 | Everyone wants to control the abandoned oil well that now produces water. | Michael Caine, Valerie Perrine |
| Silence of the Lambs | Movie | 1991 | The heroine is seeking a missing woman. The villain is keeping his victim in a well in his basement. | Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn |
| World Gone Wild | Movie | 1988 | Future setting where Lost Wells Outpost holds the only water in existence after a nuclear holocaust. Survivors will do anything for water. | Bruce Dern, Michael Pare |
| Old Well | Movie | 1987 | Set in the Taihang Mountains of China, a town struggles to survive in a constant search for water. Zhang Yimou stars as a young man recently returned to his village who tries to find water and is caught between old traditions, new ideas and two women. | Zhang Yimou |
| Everybody's Baby: Jessica McClure | Movie | 1987 | Story of the rescue of 18-month old Jessica McClure of Midland, Texas from an abandoned water well. | Patty Duke Astin, Beau Bridges |
| Baby Boom | Movie | 1987 | Single super-yuppie Mom inherits a baby who uproots her life. She starts her own business and moves to Vermont to run it. Her old farmhouse is a challenge, including repairing the water well. | Diane Keeton |
| Red Headed Stranger | Movie | 1986 | Preacher comes to town and addresses their water problems by digging a well. | Willie Nelson, Morgan Fairchild, Katherine Ross |
| The Last Frontier | TV Movie | 1986 | Dowsing, water well drilling rigs and water wells are feautured. | Jason Robards, Linda Evans |
| Jean de Florette | Movie | 1986 | A French film about a man forced to water his crops by well after a neighbor blocks the springs. | Gerard Depardiue, Yves Montand |
| The Goonies | Movie | 1985 | Kids look for pirate treasure and in the search find themselves in the town wishing well. | Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Corey Feldman |
| The Well | Gunsmoke Episode 418, Season 12 | 1966 | Rainmaker tries his stuff before the town well runs dry. | Regular Cast |
| The Poisoned Well | Ben Casey Episode 21, Season 4 | 1965 | A water Well is poisoned | Vince Edwards |
| Dry Well | Gunsmoke Episode 320, Season 9 | 1964 | Marshall Dillon works to get man out of well. | Regular Cast |
| The Miracle Worker | Movie | 1962 | Story of Helen Keller. Much of her learning comes at the well pump. | Patty Duke, Anne Bancroft |
| Bad Day at Black Rock | Movie | 1954 | A man disappears at the Adobe Flats area just outside a small, dusty, one-horse Califormia town and foul play is suspected. Spencer Tracy investigates. He learns that the man found water and dug a 60 foot well. | Spencer Tracy, Ernest Borgnine, Walter Brennen |
| Water Well Oil | Cisco Kid Episode 12, Season 2 | 1951 | A young man shoots at Cisco and Pancho over a well | Duncan Reynaldo and Leo Carillo |
| The Well | Movie | 1951 | A racially mixed town works to save a black child who has fallen down a well. | Richard Rober, Harry Morgan |
| The Farmer and the Belle | Cartoon | 1950 | Popeye competes for Olive Oyl's attention by doing chores, including getting water from the well. | Popeye, Olive Oyl, Bluto |
| Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House | Movie | 1948 | A NY Advertising exec finds challenges building his own house - including constructing a water well. | Cary Grant |
| Sahara | Movie | 1943 | The German army wants a water well under control of enemy troops. | Humphrey Bogart |
| Colt Comrades | Movie | 1943 | Hopalong Cassidy drills for oil but hits water instead - threatening the local water baron. | William Boyd, Andy Clyde |
| The Old Chisolm Trail | Movie | 1942 | Cattle Lady Turner will do anything to keep neighbor from drilling a water well for his cattle as opposed to his buying water from her. | Johnny Mack Brown, Tex Ritter, Mady Correll |
| George Washington Slept Here | Movie | 1942 | A couple moves from Manhattan to a dilapidated country house in Connecticut. A new water well is needed and is drilled with cable tools. | Jack Benny, Ann Sheridan, Percy Kilbride |
| Riding the Wind | Movie | 1942 | A man in control of the towns water uses it as a weapon against the ranchers. The cattlemen decide to drill their own wells for water. | Tim Holt, Ray Whitley |
| Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs | Animated Movie | 1937 | Wishes are made by the water well. | Unknown |
| Them Thar Hills | Movie | 1934 | Two friends drink from a well in the mountains that is full of abandoned moonshine. | Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy |
| The Cheyenne Cyclone | Movie | 1931 | A rancher's water supply has been poisoned and he hires a well driller. But the driller has been paid by a rival to find no water. | Lance Chandler, Frankie Darro |
| Judith of Bethulia | Movie | 1914 | The Assyrian King sends an army to defeat Judea. When their attacks are repeatedly repelled, the army captures Judea's wells and waits out the town. | Blanche Sweet, Henry Walthall, Lillian Gish |