The Drop

The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something.  The strongest, by dispensing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything.  The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock.  The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind.

-- Thomas Carlyle (1795 - 1881), Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher, The life of Friedrich Schiller: Comprehending an examination of his works (1825)