Nature chose for a tool, not the earthquake or lightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent or eroding rain, but the tender snow-flowers noiselessly falling through unnumbered centuries.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Nature uses gentle processes like snow to shape the world over long times instead of violent force.
- In plain terms
- Snow changes the world slowly and quietly.
- What can you take from it?
- Gentle persistence changes the world more than violence.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What gentle force changed your life?
- How does patience help you?
Another view
Sometimes force is necessary for immediate change.
More from John Muir
My fire was in all its glory about midnight, and, having made a bark shed to shelter me from the rain and partially dry my clothing, I had nothing to do but lo…
Permalink to quote #50 Nature is always lovely, invincible, glad, whatever is done and suffered by her creatures. All scars she heals, whether in rocks or water or sky or hearts.
Permalink to quote #52 Looking eastward from the summit of Pacheco Pass one shining morning, a landscape was displayed that after all my wanderings still appears as the most beautifu…
Permalink to quote #49
Related quotes
In time the savage bull sustains the yoke, In time all haggard hawks will stoop to lure, In time small wedges cleave the hardest oak, In time the flint is pier…
Thomas KydThomas Kyd quote #2 'Where the eagle glides ascending / There's an ancient river bending / Through the timeless gorge of changes / Where sleeplessness awaits' - ''Thrasher' (Rust …
Neil YoungNeil Young quote #1 Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat.
Elizabeth BowenElizabeth Bowen quote #2