Water: An Important Resource for All Time

By Cindy Kreifels, The Groundwater Foundation

Water is one thing we cannot live without.  It is vital to our very existence. And, people have been writing and talking about it for all time.

“Filthy water cannot be washed.” -  West African Proverb

“When you drink the water, remember the spring.”  - Chinese Proverb

”The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives.” – American Indian Saying

”A waster of water is a waster of better.” – Old Irish Adage

“You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.” – Heraclitus of Ephesus (535 B.C. – 475 B.C.)

“The noblest of the elements is water.” – Pindar (476 B.C.)

“Water is the driving force of all nature.” – Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519)

“When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.” – Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

“The wise man of Miletus thus declared the first of things is water.” – J.S. Blackie (1877)

“Water is the only drink for a wise man.” – Henry David Thoreau (1917-1962)

“We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.” – Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997)

“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 (1917-1963)

“Anything else you’re interested in is not going to happen if you can’t breathe the air and drink the water.  Don’t sit this one out.  Do something. You are by accident of fate alive at an absolutely critical moment in the history of our planet.”  -- Carl Sagan (1934-1996)

“If you could tomorrow morning make water clean in the world, you would have done, in one fell swoop, the best thing you could have done for improving human health by improving environmental quality.” – William C. Clark (1988)

“All the water that will ever be is, right now.” – National Geographic (1993)

“Water, like religion and ideology, has the power to move millions of people. Since the very birth of human civilization, people have moved to settle close to it.  People move when there is too little of it.  People move when there is too much of it.  People journey down it.  People write, sing and dance about it. People fight over it. And all people, everywhere and every day, need it.” --  Mikhail Gorbachev (2000)

“Water is the lifeblood of our bodies, our economy, our nation and our well-being.” – Stephen Johnson (2007)

“Water is personal, water is local, water is regional, water is statewide.  Everybody has a different idea, a different approach, a different issue, a different concern.  Water is the most personal issue we have…” – Susan Marks (2009)

“It is because of people that we protect groundwater, but it is only through people that we can do so!” – The Groundwater Foundation