A novice might see no change in the statue from one day to another; for though the chisel touches the stone a thousand times, it touches as lightly as the fall of a rain-drop, but each touch leaves a mark.
The smallest thing becomes respectable when regarded as the commencement of what has advanced or is advancing into magnificence.

The crude settlement of Romulus would have remained an insignificant circumstance and might have justly sunk into oblivion, if Rome had not at length commanded the world.
Beecher says that men, in their property, are afraid of conflagrations and lightning strokes; but if they were building a wharf in Panama, a million madrepores, so small that only the microscope could detect them, would begin to bore the piles down under the water.

There would be neither noise nor foam; but in a little while, if a child did but touch the post, over it would fall as if a saw had cut it through.
Men think, with regard to their conduct, that, if they were to lift themselves up gigantically and commit some crashing sin, they should never be able to hold up their heads; but they will harbor in their souls little sins, which are piercing and eating them away to inevitable ruin.
Lichens, of themselves of little value, prepare the way for important vegetation.

They deposit, in dying, an acid which wears away the rock and prepares the mould necessary for the nourishment of superior plants.
It was but a tiny rivulet trickling down the embankment that started the terrible Johnstown flood and swept thousands into eternity.

One noble heroic act has elevated a nation.