We drink it. We swim in it. We inhale it with the air we breathe, and exhale it when we sleep, when we talk, when we laugh, when we stand outside on a cold night watching the stars, our breath made visible. We sail on it, ski on it, and whitewater raft on it. We are, to a large extent, made of it.
Our planet is a shining blue marble in the darkness of space because of it.
And now, today, we’re messing with it. The sheer number of human beings on Earth is adding unsustainable stress to the supply and quality of fresh water all over the globe. While water is life, the limited - and in too many cases, nonexistent - availability of clean, portable water means lingering sickness and even death for countless people in scores of countries.
Here, on the United Nations 10th annual World Water Day, Life.com offers a gallery celebrating the most wondrous of all the elements - a small, humble gesture of gratitude toward dihydrogen monoxide, without which we, and everything we know and love, would simply dry up and blow away.
2:03 pm • 20 May 2012
People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.
- Joseph F. Newton
1:57 pm • 20 May 2012
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
- Haruki Murakami
1:54 pm • 20 May 2012
Certainly we want to protect our children from new and painful experiences that are beyond their emotional comprehension and that intensify anxiety; and to a point we can prevent premature exposure to such experiences. That is obvious. But what is just as obvious - and what is too often overlooked - is the fact that from their earliest years children live on familiar terms with disrupting emotions, fear and anxiety are an intrinsic part of their everyday lives, they continually cope with frustrations as best they can. And it is through fantasy that children achieve catharsis. It is the best means they have for taming Wild Things.
- Maurice Sendak
1:50 pm • 20 May 2012
A sannyasin - a solitary being, a wanderer, absolutely happy in his aloneness. If somebody walks by his side it is okay, it is good. If somebody leaves it is also okay, it is good. He never waits for anybody, and he never looks back. Alone, he is whole.
- Osho
1:47 pm • 20 May 2012
life:
The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.
- Henry Ward Beecher
Underwater ballet, 1945. See more here.
(Walter Sanders—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image)
(via maryrobinson)
1:40 pm • 20 May 2012 • 1,565 notes
But I think it’s intoxicating when somebody is so unapologetically who they are.
- Don Cheadle
(Source: atisha)
1:31 pm • 20 May 2012 • 9 notes
A great silence overcomes me, and I wonder why I ever thought to use language.
- Rumi
(Source image: lunarata:)
(Source: weheartit.com, via jejunemind)
1:27 pm • 20 May 2012 • 20,561 notes
The world spins. We stumble on. It is enough.
- Colum McCann, Let The Great World Spin
(Source: r0tten-art, via loveyourchaos)
1:26 pm • 20 May 2012 • 5,332 notes
nevver:
The other day I was down by the Hudson River, and I see two nuns in full habit rollerblading down the street holding hands. And I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, I get it. The word is surreal and beautiful. And everything is fine.’
- Regina Spektor
1:24 pm • 20 May 2012 • 765 notes
