A Quote by Lucretius

The water hollows out the stone, not by force but drop by drop. — © Lucretius
The water hollows out the stone, not by force but drop by drop.

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Nothing surely is as potent as a law that may not be disobeyed. It has the force of the water drop that hollows the stone. A small dainty task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.
The drop hollows out the stone not by strength, but by constant falling.
Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.
Realization doesn't destroy the individual any more than the reflection of the moon breaks a drop of water. A drop of water can reflect the whole sky.
That's the old ecological tale that explains humans' inability to fully appreciate global warming. To wit: if you drop a frog in a pan of hot water, it jumps out. If you drop it in a pan of cold water, then turn the heat up slowly, you can roast it to death.
Dripping water hollows out a stone
It may seem rash indeed to draw conclusions valid for the whole universe from what we can see from the small corner to which we are confined. Who knows that the whole visible universe is not like a drop of water at the surface of the earth? Inhabitants of that drop of water, as small relative to it as we are relative to the Milky Way, could not possibly imagine that beside the drop of water there might be a piece of iron or a living tissue, in which the properties of matter are entirely different.
Don't believe that jazz about there's nothing you can do, "turn on and drop out, man" - because you've got to turn on and drop in, or they're going to drop all over you.
When a drop of water touches a drop of water there is no holding back - it joins. Water responds to water. Your being responds to what is the same, outside of you, as your own being.
A drop of water is not immortal; it can be resolved into oxygen and hydrogen. If, therefore, a drop of water were to maintain that it had a quality of aqueousness which would survive its dissolution we should be inclined to be skeptical. In like manner we know that the brain is not immortal.
We always try to mix it up-three-step drop, five-step drop, seven-step drop, naked bootleg. We spread out all these kinds of things to keep the defensive pass rush unbalanced.
Do you know they've already seen a drop of 37% in donations [for Clinton Global Initiative]? Now, if it's a charity, why a 37% drop? There's a 37% drop because the donors figured out the Clintons can't do anything for 'em anymore. That's not pretty.
In the case of those who are making progress from good to better, the good angel touches the soul gently, lightly, sweetly, as a drop of water enters a sponge, while the evil spirit touches it sharply, with noise and disturbance, like a drop of water falling on a rock.
Gutta cavat lapidem, non vi sed saepe cadendo. (The drop excavates the stone, not with force but by falling often.)
Drop by drop is the water pot filled. Likewise, the wise man, gathering it little by little, fills himself with good.
You do not have to explain every single drop of water contained in a rain barrel. You have to explain one drop-H2O. The reader will get it.
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