One day in the mountains I came upon a sweet birch sapling apparently growing on a solid rock with only one slight depression, which had collected leaves that had turned to mold.  In this meager footing of light soil the young tree had taken root.  I wondered if it would survive.

A few years later I saw the tree, lusty and hale; and the rock had been cleft asunder.  The delicate roots that you might at first have snapped with your fingers, had sought and had found a tiny fissure in the massive boulder.  Then, with the strange strength of gentleness, and with a patient persistence that never wearied during the growing seasons for months and for years, they slowly forced their way downward toward the life-sustaining soil beneath, until, at last, silently they rived the rock of granite.

I learned from that lesson that there is no natural force, however barbaric in its might, which will not yield at length to slow, sagacious, and dispassionate effort.

All wholesome growth is leisurely.  Most of the waste of the world is occasioned by haste.  If we can’t have patience we might as well quit.  Wherever there is life, its greatest privileges are to be enjoyed and its most beautiful promises come to flower only if the law of patience is obeyed.

—Archibald Rutledge