Quotes & Sayings About Water Conflict

Consider that the earth is a processing plant, a factory. Picture a tumbler used to polish rocks: a rolling drum filled with water and sand. Consider that your soul is dropped in as an ugly rock, some raw mineral or natural resource, crude oil, mineral ore. And all conflict and pain is the abrasive that rubs us, polishes our soul, refines us, teaches and finishes us over lifetime after lifetime. — Chuck Palahniuk

I sometimes wonder where the world would have been if we didn't have corruption, racism, dictatorial leadership, international terrorism, armed conflict, the spread of infectious diseases, climate change, poverty, hunger and lack of drinking water, the caste system, tribalism, communism, international media propaganda, the Colonial Borders of Africa created by Europeans for their own gains, the Ignorance of the Books of Machiavelli, Hegel & Darwinism (You are either with us or against us) and Lack of Domestic Leadership Education. — Henry Johnson Jr

My daily affairs are quite ordinary; but I'm in total harmony with them. I don't hold on to anything, don't reject anything; nowhere an obstacle or conflict. Who cares about wealth and honor? Even the poorest thing shines. My miraculous power and spiritual activity: drawing water and carrying wood. — Layman Pang

Climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism. And if we do not get our act together and listen to what the scientists say, you're going to see countries all over the world struggling over limited amounts of water, limited amounts of land to grow their crops ask you're going to see all kinds of international conflict. — Hillary Clinton

What we're also looking at, if we do not transform our energy system, is more international war and conflict as countries fight over limited natural resources, including water and land to grow their crops. — Bernie Sanders

As I travel around the world, people think the only place where there is potential conflict [over] water is the Middle East, but they are completely wrong. We have the problem all over the world. — Kofi Annan

The supreme good is like water, which nourishes all things without trying to. It is content with the low places that people disdain. Thus it is like the Tao. In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present. When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you. — Lao-Tzu

The principle of avoiding conflict and never opposing an aggressor's strength head-on is the essence of aikido. We apply the same principle to problems that arise in life. The skilled aikidoist is as elusive as the truth of Zen; he makes himself into a koan - a puzzle which slips away the more one tries to solve it. He is like water in that he falls through the fingers of those who try to clutch him. Water does not hesitate before it yields, for the moment the fingers begin to close it moves away, not of its own strength, but by using the pressure applied to it. It is for this reason, perhaps, that one of the symbols for aikido is water. — Joe Hyams

Supreme good is like water. Water greatly benefits all things, without conflict. It flows through places that people loathe. Thereby it is close to the Way. — Laozi

I want to make it clear,if there is ever a conflict (between environmental quality and economic growth), I will go for beauty, clean air, water, and landscape. — Jimmy Carter

The aboriginal peoples of Australia illustrate the conflict between technology and the natural world succinctly, by asking, 'What will you do when the clever men destroy your water?' That, in truth, is what the world is coming to. — Winona LaDuke

The Swiss, in addition to being self-righteous and unyielding, will do anything to avoid conflict. Decorum and civility define their culture. Although they are unhappy or worried most of the time, they do not show it. I do not as yet have sufficient information to support the opinion, but I believe that the Swiss government has ordered Prozac to be added to the water. — Scott Haas

Dr. Shammaa's story was a dreadful one and her voice
broke as she told it. "I had to take the babies and put them
in buckets of water to put out the flames," she said. "When
I took them out half an hour later, they were still burning.
Even in the mortuary, they smouldered for hours." Next
morning, Amal Shammaa took the tiny corpses out of the
mortuary for burial. To her horror, they again burst into
flames. — Susan Abulhawa

So never give in," continued the girl, and restated again and again the vague yet convincing plea that the Invisible lodges against the Visible. Her excitement grew as she tried to cut the rope that fastened Leonard to the earth. Woven of bitter experience, it resisted her. Presently the waitress entered and gave her a letter from Margaret. Another note, addressed to Leonard, was inside. They read them, listening to the murmurings of the river. — E. M. Forster

If we do not change our negative habits toward climate change, we can count on worldwide disruptions in food production, resulting in mass migration, refugee crises and increased conflict over scarce natural resources like water and farm land. This is a recipe for major security problems. — Michael Franti

You might not see climate change as an immediate threat to your job, your community, or your families," Kerry said. "But let me tell you, it is." He continued, "climate change is directly related to the potential of greater conflict and greater instability. I'm telling you that there are people in parts of the world - in Africa today, they fight each other over water. They kill each over it. And if glaciers are melting and there's less water available and more people, that is a challenge we have to face. — John F. Kerry

Rivers are inherently interesting. They mold landscapes, create fertile deltas, provide trade routes, a source for food and water; a place to wash and play; civilizations emerged next to rivers in China, India, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. They sustain life and bring death and destruction. They are ferocious at times; gentle at times. They are placid and mean. They trigger conflict and delineate boundaries. Rivers are the stuff of metaphor and fable, painting and poetry. Rivers unite and divide - a thread that runs from source to exhausted release. — Edward Gargan

Aliveness, he will teach, is a gift available to all by God's grace. It flows not from taking, but giving, not from fear but from faith, not from conflict but from reconciliation, not from domination but from service. It isn't found in the upper trappings of religion -rules and rituals, controversies and scruples, temples and traditions. No, it springs up from our innermost being like a fountain of living water. It intoxicates us lie the best wine ever and so turns life from disappointment into a banquet. — Brian D. McLaren

The 1.8 million child deaths each year related to clean water and sanitation dwarf the casualities associated with violent conflict. No act of terrorism generates economic devastation on the scale of the crisis in water and sanitation. Yet the issue barely registers on the international agenda. — Rose George

My daily activities are not unusual -
I am just naturally in harmony with them,
Grasping nothing, discarding nothing,
And everyplace there's no hindrance, no conflict.
My supernatural power and marvelous activity
Is drawing water and carrying firewood. — Yun P'ang

The Arab-Israeli conflict is also in many ways a conflict about status: it's a war between two peoples who feel deeply humiliated by the other, who want the other to respect them. Battles over status can be even more intractable than those over land or water or oil. — Alain De Botton

A peaceful life doesn't mean one that has no conflict or struggle ... a life that avoids conflict never changes. We must live making sounds like the stream of water ... we can produce beautiful sounds in our lives by colliding with obstacles. — Ilchi Lee

... she does not resent her grief. No; the weakness of that word would make it a lie. To her, what hurts becomes immediately embodied: she looks on it as a thing that can be attacked, worried down, torn in shreds. Scarcely a substance herself, she grapples to conflict with abstractions. Before calamity she is a tigress; she rends her woes, shivers them in convulsed abhorrence. Pain, for her, has no result in good; tears water no harvest of wisdom; on sickness, on death itself, she looks with the eye of a rebel. Wicked, perhaps, she is, but also she is strong: and her strength has conqueredBeauty, has overcome Grace, and bound both at her side, captives peerlessly fair, and docile as fair. Even in the uttermost frenzy of energy is each maenad movement royally, imperially, incedingly upborne. ... Fallen, insurgent, banished, she remembers the heaven whereshe rebelled. — Charlotte Bronte

Self-centeredness will bring on the destruction of our world. National pride separates people. All people need the same thing. When you really get down to it, you'll find that all people need good food, clean water, clean air, and a decent environment, meaning education as to how to relate to one another and to avoid conflict, how to accept the differences where different people draw different conclusions. — Jacque Fresco

Fierce national competition over water resources has prompted fears that water issues contain the seeds of violent conflict. — Kofi Annan

Nothing could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here. You just can't imagine it unless you see it. And even then your experience is not at all the reality: what with the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen, the fact that I have money to buy water when the army destroys wells, and of course, the fact that I have the option to leave. I am allowed to see the ocean. — Rachel Corrie

We only gain collectively by acting now. We gain by one day not having to pay a thing for fuel. We gain by having cleaner air, water, and food so that we are healthier and our health care costs come down. We gain by deflating the global fossil fuel markets that drive much of the conflict around the world. — Mark Ruffalo