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No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig.
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“No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig.”

Epictetus

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Source
Discourses of Epictetus
Date
c. 108
English wording
George Long — Translator · from Ancient Greek
Meaning

Meaning of “No great thing is created suddenly, any more…”

Epictetus treats worthwhile development as organic rather than instantaneous: ability, character and reconciliation require stages of growth that cannot be skipped simply because the final result is desired now.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Discourses of Epictetus, Book I, Chapter XV, “What Philosophy Promises,” George Long translation; 1877 George Bell & Sons witness on Wikisource, cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #10661. Epictetus answers a request for immediate improvement with the fig/grape analogy: nothing great is produced suddenly and development requires time.

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Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

GrowthInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityMotivational Quotes for Action, Effort & PersistencePatiencePerseverance Quotes About Sustained EffortPersonal GrowthSelf ImprovementShortStoicWisdom Quotes About Judgment & Living WellGreatnessWaiting
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Sweet are the uses of adversity.
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“Sweet are the uses of adversity.”

William Shakespeare · As You Like It · c. 1599
Voice: Fictional character · Duke Senior
Meaning & context

Adversity is presented as capable of yielding insight or value even when the experience itself is unwelcome.

Source details

As You Like It, Act II, Scene 1, Duke Senior; 1919 Yale Shakespeare edition edited by Jack R. Crawford, printed page 24 / Wikisource scan leaf 36. “Sweet are the uses of adversity” occurs in Duke Senior’s Forest of Arden reflection on exile, winter and the lessons he claims to find outside court life. It remains fictional dramatic speech rather than Shakespeare’s autobiographical advice or a modern psychological claim about hardship.

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We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success.
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“We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success.”

Samuel Smiles · Self-Help · 1859
Meaning & context

Failure can expose what does not work and force closer observation, turning setbacks into information that uncomplicated success may never reveal.

Source details

Self-Help, Chapter XI, “Self-Culture—Facilities and Difficulties,” Project Gutenberg #935. The passage follows Charles James Fox’s contrast between early success and perseverance after failure, then leads into examples of discoveries and learning produced through mistakes and failed attempts.

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Generally then if you would make anything a habit, do it.
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“Generally then if you would make anything a habit, do it.”

Epictetus · Discourses of Epictetus · c. 125 CE
Meaning & context

Repeated behavior trains the corresponding habit, so change depends on practicing the desired action rather than merely endorsing it in theory.

Source details

Discourses of Epictetus, Book II, Chapter XVIII, “How we should struggle against appearances,” George Long translation; 1877 George Bell & Sons witness on Wikisource, cross-checked against Project Gutenberg #10661. This collection lightly normalizes Long’s “any thing” to “anything”; this longer record contains the shorter retained habit excerpt represented by a separate legacy quote URL.

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Progress, however, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.
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“Progress, however, of the best kind, is comparatively slow.”

Samuel Smiles · Self-Help · 1859
Meaning & context

Smiles treats durable progress as incremental rather than instantaneous, arguing that worthwhile results are built through repeated effort and patience instead of expecting one dramatic breakthrough.

Source details

Self-Help, Chapter IV, “Application and Perseverance,” Project Gutenberg #935. The sentence opens a paragraph that continues, “Great results cannot be achieved at once,” and compares advancement in life to walking step by step.

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To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
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“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

Ecclesiastes · King James Bible — Ecclesiastes 3:1 · 1611
Meaning & context

The verse places change inside a larger rhythm of seasons and purposes, making it useful for thinking about acceptance when one phase of life gives way to another.

Source details

Ecclesiastes 3:1 in the King James Version, opening the sequence of contrasting times and seasons.

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So much patient perseverance could not but eventually succeed
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“So much patient perseverance could not but eventually succeed”

Samuel Smiles · The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson · 1868
Meaning & context

Smiles describes Stephenson’s progress in arithmetic as the cumulative result of study and patient persistence rather than easy aptitude.

Source details

The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson, Chapter IV, “The Stephensons at Killingworth—Education and Self-Education of Father and Son”; represented 1868 revised edition, Project Gutenberg #46229. The excerpt is Smiles’s narration of Stephenson’s patient arithmetic study under John Wigham.

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