What is a Lake?

Bowman Lake, Glacier National Park. Photo courtesy gravityshots.com

A lake is an area of variable size filled with water, lying on the surface of a continent, localized in a basin that is surrounded by land, and unconnected with the ocean except indirectly by rivers. Limnology is the study of lakes, rivers and wetlands.

So lovely was the loneliness of a wild lake.
– Edgar Allan Poe

A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable.
– William Wordsworth

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.
– Wallace Stevens

Be calm like a calm lake, then you will look beautiful like a beautiful calm lake!
– Mehmet Murat ildan

Time wasted at the lake is time well spent.
– unknown