The principle function of a water cooler is to dispense water – that invaluable natural resource that none of us can live without. Naturally we talk about water a lot, how it allows our bodies to perform optimally, how it improves our health, lifts our mood and increases our productivity in the office. We also talk about the lack of water for people in third world countries and how AquAid established the Africa Trust to help bring clean and safe drinking water to impoverished communities. But there’s also the poetic side of water – the side that acts as a symbol, the side that inspires, which we don’t touch on frequently, so here are a few of our favourite water related musings, courtesy of Everyday Power :

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it. – Lao Tzu

A drop of water, if it could write out its own history, would explain the universe to us. – Lucy Larcom

The fall of dropping water wears away the Stone. – Lucretius

When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water. – Benjamin Franklin

When life places stones in your path, be the water. A persistent drop of water will wear away even the hardest stone. ― Autumn Morning Star

Human nature is like water. It takes the shape of its container. ― Wallace Stevens

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.― W. H. Auden

All water is holy water. ― Rajiv Joseph

Love, like a river, will cut a new path whenever it meets an obstacle. – Crystal Middlemas

Always be like a water. Float in the times of pain or dance like waves along the wind which touches its surface.― Santosh Kalwar

You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. – Rabindranath Tagore

A river cuts through rock not because of its power but because of its persistence. – Jim Watkins

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of you are found all the aspects of existence. ― Kahlil Gibran

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.― Mahatma Gandhi

Pure water is the world’s first and foremost medicine. – Slovakian Proverb

Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.― Ryunosuke Satoro