Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I don’t get thirsty, neither come all the way here to draw.”

Going Through Samaria

Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6: The Cynics

One day, observing a child drinking out of his hands, he cast away the cup from his wallet with the words, "A child has beaten me in plainness of living." He also threw away his bowl when in like manner he saw a child who had broken his plate taking up his lentils with the hollow part of a morsel of bread. He used also to reason thus: "All things belong to the gods. The wise are friends of the gods, and friends hold things in common. Therefore all things belong to the wise." One day he saw a woman kneeling before the gods in an ungraceful attitude, and wishing to free her of superstition, according to Zolus of Perga, he came forward and said, "Are you not afraid, my good woman, that a god may be standing behind you? – for all things are full of his presence – and you may be put to shame?"

Being reproached with drinking in a tavern, "Well," said he, "I also get my hair cut in a barber's shop." Being reproached with accepting a cloak from Antipater, he replied: The gods' choice gifts are nowise to be spurned. When some one first shook a beam at him and then shouted "Look out," Diogenes struck the man with his staff and added "Look out." To a man who was urgently pressing his suit to a courtesan he said, "Why, hapless man, are you at such pains to gain your suit, when it would be better for you to lose it?" To one with perfumed hair he said, "Beware lest the sweet scent on your head cause an ill odour in your life." He said that bad men obey their lusts as servants obey their masters.

One day when he was censured for keeping company with evil men, the reply he made was, "Well, physicians are in attendance on their patients without getting the fever themselves." "It is strange," said he, "that we weed out the darnel from the corn and the unfit in war, but do not excuse evil men from the service of the state." When he was asked what advantage had accrued to him from philosophy, his answer was, "The ability to hold converse with myself." Some one having called upon him over the wine for a song, he replied, "Then you must accompany me on the pipe." When Diogenes begged a coat of him, he bade him fold his cloak around him double.

Discourses 3.22: On the Calling of a Cynic

And how is it possible for a man who has nothing, who is naked, without home or hearth, in squalor, without a slave, without a city, to live serenely? Behold, God has sent you the man who will show in practice that it is possible. "Look at me," he says, "I am without a home, without a city, without property, without a slave; I sleep on the ground; I have neither wife nor children, no miserable governor's mansion, but only earth, and sky, and one rough cloak. Yet what do I lack? Am I not free from pain and fear, am I not free? When has anyone among you seen me failing to get what I desire, or falling into what I would avoid? When have I ever found fault with either God or man? When have I ever blamed anyone? Has anyone among you seen me with a gloomy face? And how do I face those persons before whom you stand in fear and awe? Do I not face them as slaves? Who, when he lays eyes upon me, does not feel that he is seeing his king and his master?"

What are you, then? Truly a shepherd! for you wail as the shepherds do when a wolf carries off one of their sheep; and these men over whom you rule are sheep. But why did you come here in the first place? Your desire was not in danger, was it, or your avoidance, your choice, or your refusal? "No," he answers, "but my brother's frail wife was carried off." Was it not, then, a great gain to lose a frail and adulterous wife? "Shall we, then, be despised by the Trojans?" Who are they? Wise men or foolish? If wise, why are you fighting with them? If foolish, why do you care? "In what, then, is the good, since it is not in these things? Tell us. Sir messenger and scout." "It is where you do not expect it, and do not wish to look for it. For if you had wished, you would have found it within you, and you would not now be wandering outside, nor would you be seeking what does not concern you, as though it were your own possession. Turn your thoughts upon yourselves, find out the kind of preconceived ideas which you have. what sort of a thing do you imagine the good to be? Serenity, happiness, freedom from restraint. Come, do you not imagine it to be something naturally great? Something precious? Something not injurious?

"I wear a rough cloak even as it is, and I shall have one then; I have a hard bed even now, and so I shall then; I shall take to myself a wallet and a staff, and I shall begin to walk around and beg from those I meet, and revile them; and if I see someone who is getting rid of superfluous hair by the aid of pitch-plasters, or has a fancy cut to his hair, or is strolling about in scarlet clothes, I will come down hard on him." If you fancy the affair to be something like this, give it a wide berth; don't come near it, it is nothing for you. But if your impression of it is correct, and you do not think too meanly of yourself, consider the magnitude of the enterprise that you are taking in hand. First, in all that pertains to yourself directly you must change completely from your present practices, and must cease to blame God or man; you must utterly wipe out desire, and must turn your aversion toward the things which lie within the province of the moral purpose, and these only; you must feel no anger, no rage, no envy, no pity; no wench must look fine to you, no petty reputation, no boy-favourite, no little sweet-cake. For this you ought to know: Other men have the protection of their walls and their houses and darkness, when they do anything of that sort, and they have many things to hide them. A man closes his door, stations someone at the entrance to his bedroom: "If anyone comes, tell him 'He is not at home, he is not at leisure.'"

The Dhammapada

The thirst of a thoughtless man grows like a creeper; he runs from life to life, like a monkey seeking fruit in the forest. Whomsoever this fierce thirst overcomes, full of poison, in this world, his sufferings increase like the abounding Birana grass. He who overcomes this fierce thirst, difficult to be conquered in this world, sufferings fall off from him, like water-drops from a lotus leaf.

Men, driven on by thirst, run about like a snared hare; held in fetters and bonds, they undergo pain for a long time, again and again. Men, driven on by thirst, run about like a snared hare; let therefore the mendicant drive out thirst, by striving after passionlessness for himself. He who having got rid of the forest (of lust) (i.e. after having reached Nirvana) gives himself over to forest-life (i.e. to lust), and who, when removed from the forest (i.e. from lust), runs to the forest (i.e. to lust), look at that man! though free, he runs into bondage.

This salutary word I tell you, `Do ye, as many as are here assembled, dig up the root of thirst, as he who wants the sweet-scented Usira root must dig up the Birana grass, that Mara (the tempter) may not crush you again and again, as the stream crushes the reeds.' As a tree, even though it has been cut down, is firm so long as its root is safe, and grows again, thus, unless the feeders of thirst are destroyed, the pain (of life) will return again and again.

The Bhagavad Gita

Having in ancient times emanated mankind together with sacrifice, the Lord of emanation said: "By this shall ye propagate; be this to you the giver of desire; "With this nourish ye the Shining Ones, and may the Shining Ones nourish you; thus nourishing one another ye shall reap the supremest good. "For, nourished by sacrifice, the Shining Ones shall bestow on you the enjoyments you desire." A thief verily is he who enjoyeth what is given by Them without returning Them aught.

And he who shall study this sacred dialogue of ours, by him I shall be worshipped with the sacrifice of wisdom. Such is My mind. The man also who, full of faith, merely heareth it unreviling, even he, freed from evil, obtaineth the radiant worlds of the righteous. Hath this been heard, O son of Prithâ, with one-pointed mind? Has thy delusion, caused by unwisdom, been destroyed, O Dhananjaya?

When the Seer perceiveth no agent other than the qualities, and knoweth That which is higher than the qualities, he entereth into My Nature. When the dweller in the body hath crossed over these three qualities, whence all bodies have been produced, liberated from birth, death, old age and sorrow, he drinketh the nectar of immortality. Arjuna said: What are the marks of him who hath crossed over the three qualities, O Lord? How acteth he, and how doth he go beyond these three qualities?

Shinto Oracles

Leave the things of this world and come to me daily and monthly with pure bodies and pure hearts. You will then enjoy paradise in this world and have all your desires accomplished.

Ye men of mine. Shun desire. If you shun desire you will ascend to a level with the Gods. Every little yielding to anxiety is a step away from the natural heart of man. If one leaves the natural heart of man, he becomes a beast. That men should be made so, is to me intolerable pain and unending sorrow

If we keep unperverted the human heart, which is like unto Heaven and received from Earth, that is God. The Gods have their abode in the heart. Amongst the various ordinances none is more excellent than that of religious meditation

The Tao Te Ching

The valley spirit dies not, aye the same; The female mystery thus do we name. Its gate, from which at first they issued forth, Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth. Long and unbroken does its power remain, Used gently, and without the touch of pain.

That whereby the rivers and seas are able to receive the homage and tribute of all the valley streams, is their skill in being lower than they;--it is thus that they are the kings of them all. So it is that the sage (ruler), wishing to be above men, puts himself by his words below them, and, wishing to be before them, places his person behind them. In this way though he has his place above them, men do not feel his weight, nor though he has his place before them, do they feel it an injury to them. Therefore all in the world delight to exalt him and do not weary of him. Because he does not strive, no one finds it possible to strive with him.

There is nothing in the world more soft and weak than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it;--for there is nothing (so effectual) for which it can be changed. Every one in the world knows that the soft overcomes the hard, and the weak the strong, but no one is able to carry it out in practice. Therefore a sage has said, 'He who accepts his state's reproach, Is hailed therefore its altars' lord; To him who bears men's direful woes They all the name of King accord.' Words that are strictly true seem to be paradoxical.

The Analects of Confucius

The Master said, 'The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long-lived.' The Master said, 'Ch'i, by one change, would come to the State of Lu. Lu, by one change, would come to a State where true principles predominated.' The Master said, 'A cornered vessel without corners.-- A strange cornered vessel! A strange cornered vessel!'

The Master said, 'From the man bringing his bundle of dried flesh for my teaching upwards, I have never refused instruction to any one.' The Master said, 'I do not open up the truth to one who is not eager to get knowledge, nor help out any one who is not anxious to explain himself. When I have presented one corner of a subject to any one, and he cannot from it learn the other three, I do not repeat my lesson.'

The Master standing by a stream, said, 'It passes on just like this, not ceasing day or night!' The Master said, 'I have not seen one who loves virtue as he loves beauty.' The Master said, 'The prosecution of learning may be compared to what may happen in raising a mound. If there want but one basket of earth to complete the work, and I stop, the stopping is my own work. It may be compared to throwing down the earth on the level ground. Though but one basketful is thrown at a time, the advancing with it is my own going forward.'

The Meaning of the Glorious Koran

And when Moses asked for water for his people, We said: Smite with thy staff the rock. And there gushed out therefrom twelve springs (so that) each tribe knew their drinking-place. Eat and drink of that which Allah hath provided, and do not act corruptly, making mischief in the earth.

(They said:) We wish to eat thereof, that we may satisfy our hearts and know that thou hast spoken truth to us, and that thereof we may be witnesses. Jesus, son of Mary, said: O Allah, Lord of us! Send down for us a table spread with food from heaven, that it may be a feast for us, for the first of us and for the last of us, and a sign from Thee. Give us sustenance, for Thou art the Best of Sustainers.

So he watered (their flock) for them. Then he turned aside into the shade, and said: My Lord! I am needy of whatever good Thou sendest down for me. Then there came unto him one of the two women, walking shyly. She said: Lo! my father biddeth thee, that he may reward thee with a payment for that thou didst water (the flock) for us. Then, when he came unto him and told him the (whole) story, he said: Fear not! Thou hast escaped from the wrongdoing folk.

The Japji

If I please Him, that is my place of pilgrimage to bathe in; if I please Him not, what ablutions shall I make? What can all the created beings I behold obtain without previous good acts? Precious stones, jewels, and gems shall be treasured up in thy heart if thou hearken to even one word of the Guru. The Guru hath explained one thing to me - That there is but one Bestower on all living beings; may I not forget Him!

The air is the guru, water our father, and the great earth our mother; Day and night are our two nurses, male and female, who set the whole world a-playing. Merits and demerits shall be read out in the presence of the Judge. According to men's acts, some shall be near, and others distant from God. They who have pondered on the Name and departed after the completion of their toil, Shall have their countenances made bright, O Nanak; how many shall be emancipated in company with them!

By hearing the Name truth, contentment, and divine knowledge are obtained. Hearing the Name is equal to bathing at the sixty-eight places of pilgrimage. By hearing the Name and reading it man obtaineth honour. 5 1 Surs are spiritual heroes. 2 The bull which the Hindus believe supports the earth. This is not believed in by the Sikhs. See below, pauri xvi. 3 Man shall not die again, but obtain deliverance. 4 Also translated By hearing the Name one is praised by high and low. 5 Also translated On hearing the Name man obtaineth honour by the knowledge acquired. By hearing the Name the mind is composed and fixed on God. 1 Nanak, the saints are ever happy. By hearing the Name sorrow and sin are no more.

World English Bible

The Woman of Sychar

Jesus replied: “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whosoever drinks of the water of the living spirit shall never thirst. And this living water shall become in him a well of refreshment springing up even to eternal life.” Nalda then said: “Give me this water that I thirst not, neither come all the way hither to draw. Besides, anything which a Samaritan woman could receive from such a commendable Jew would be a pleasure.”

143:5.3

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