QuoteProject
Nature is slow, but sure; she works no faster than need be; she is the tortoise that wins the race by her perseverance.
Henry David Thoreau
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Nature operates at its own pace, emphasizing patience and perseverance as key to success.

Henry David Thoreau's quote highlights the importance of patience and steady effort in achieving success. By comparing nature to the tortoise in Aesop's fable, Thoreau illustrates that slow and deliberate progress often leads to victory over faster, less consistent approaches.

Themes

NaturePerseverancePatienceSuccessSlowSteady

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech about achieving long-term goals.

More from Henry David Thoreau

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Through want of enterprise and faith men are where they are, buying and selling and spending their lives like servants.
Henry David ThoreauRead
An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.
Henry David ThoreauRead
As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.
Henry David ThoreauRead
That grand old poem called Winter
Henry David ThoreauRead

Similar quotes

But more wonderful than the lore of old men and the lore of books is the secret lore of ocean.
H. P. LovecraftRead
Nothing in all nature is so lovely and so vigorous, so perfectly at home in its environment, as a fish in the sea. Its surroundings give to it a beauty, quality, and power which are not its own. We take it out, and at once a poor, limp dull thing, fit for nothing, is gasping away its life. So the soul, sunk in God, living the life of prayer, is supported, filled, transformed in beauty, by a vitality and a power which are not its own.
Evelyn UnderhillRead
We can find Nature outside us only if we have first learned to know her within us. What is akin to her within us must be our guide. This marks out our path of enquiry.
Rudolf SteinerRead
After the Green Revolution, I came up with the concept of the Evergreen Revolution. In this we will see increase in farm productivity but without ecological harm.
M. S. SwaminathanRead
There can be no doubt that a society rooted in the soil is more stable than _x000D_ one rooted in pavements.
Aldo LeopoldRead
It was an overcast late November morning, the grass splintered by hoarfrost, and winter grinning through the gaps in the clouds like a bad clown peering through the curtains before the show begins.
John ConnollyRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.