The water hollows out the stone, not by force but drop by drop.
Interpretation
Persistence leads to change, even through gentle means.
This quote by Lucretius illustrates the power of persistence and patience in effecting change. It suggests that even the most formidable obstacles can be overcome not through brute force but through continuous, gentle effort over time, much like how water can wear away stone through the constant impact of drops.
In practice
Using this quote in a motivational speech to encourage students to keep working towards their goals.
Huts they made then, and fire, and skins for clothing, And a woman yielded to one man in wedlock... ... Common, to see the offspring they had made; The human race began to mellow then. Because of fire their shivering forms no longer Could bear the cold beneath the covering sky.
No single thing abides; but all things flow. Fragment to fragment clings - the things thus grow Until we know them and name them. By degrees They melt, and are no more the things we know.
What is food to one man is bitter poison to others.
Thus the sum of things is ever being reviewed, and mortals dependent one upon another. Some nations increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and like runners pass on the torch of life.
Many animals even now spring out of the soil, Coalescing from the rains and the heat of the sun. Small wonder, then, if more and bigger creatures, Full-formed, arose from the new young earth and sky. The breed, for instance, of the dappled birds Shucked off their eggshells in the springtime, as Crickets in summer will slip their slight cocoons All by themselves, and search for food and life. Earth gave you, then, the first of mortal kinds, For all the fields were soaked with warmth and moisture.
So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds.
The only serious question in life is whether to kill yourself or not.
The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.
All other ways of mortification are vain, all helps leave us helpless; it must be done by the Spirit.
All things in the world come from being. And being comes from non-being.
There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that they avoid the pathway of sound.
Like a good chess player, Satan is always trying to maneuver you into a position where you can save your castle only by losing your bishop.
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