
“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.”
IV, x, 5; Arthur Leslie Wheeler translation
Epistulae ex Ponto (Letters From the Black Sea)
Gutta cavat lapidem
“Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.”
“The steady drip of water causes stone to hollow and yield.”
Stilicidi casus lapidem cavat.
Book I, line 313 (tr. Stallings)
Variant translation: Continual dropping wears away a stone.
Compare: "The soft droppes of rain pierce the hard marble; many strokes overthrow the tallest oaks", John Lyly, Euphues, 1579 (Arber's reprint), p. 81
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
“The fall of dropping water wears away the Stone.”
“The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling.”
Seventh Sermon before Edward VI (1549)
“A great many a drop of water will create a creek.”
Broadcast interview, min 9.51 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVwuaHbbd4s, in "Obiettivo Friuli - Reportage da Pordenone" by Claudia Brugnetta, Rai Friuli Venezia Giulia http://www.rai.it/dl/portali/site/page/Page-2331f91a-cc95-4c68-87d7-67c9afd83529.html?refresh_ce (September 26, 2018).