Highest good is like water. Because water excels in benefiting the myriad creatures without contending with them and settles where none would like to be, it comes closest to the way.
She fell into a deep pool of sticky water, which eventually closed over her head. She saw nothing and heard nothing but a faint booming sound, which was the sound of the sea rolling over her head. While all her tormentors thought that she was dead, she was not dead, but curled up at the bottom of the sea.
Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears: But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will: when these are gone, The woman will be out. — Adieu, my lord! I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly drowns it.
So a military force has no constant formation, water has no constant shape: the ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius.
There was a piece of ornamental water immediately below the parapet, on the other side, into which Mr. James Harthouse had a very strong inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas Gradgrind Junior.
The harder we try to catch hold of the moment, to seize a pleasant sensation..., the more elusive it becomes... It is like trying to clutch water in one's hands - the harder one grips, the faster it slips through one's fingers.
In the beginning, compassion is like the seed without which we cannot have any fruit; in the middle, compassion is like water to nourish the see we have planted; in the end, compassion is like the warmth of the sun that brings the fruit to ripening.