Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1745) : Beware of little Expences, a small Leak will sink a great Ship.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)
“Watch the little things; a small leak will sink a great ship.”
“One leak will sink a ship, and one sin will destroy a sinner.”
“I was floating in a peaceful sea, rescued by a sinking ship.”
January 1979.
Catch For Us The Foxes (2004)
“It is the only case on record of a man swimming toward a sinking ship.”
On former Texas Governor John Connally's switch from Democratic to the Republican party in his bid for the Presidential nomination. Quoted in the Washington Post, 18 January 1988.
Act I, Scene III
The Foresters, Robin Hood and Maid Marion (1892)
Source: What Happened to Goodbye
Quoted in The American Mercury (1961), in a letter from Cleveland to his law partner, Wilson S. Bissell, February 15th, 1894. https://books.google.com/books?id=BIsqAAAAMAAJ&q=%22The+present+danger%22+cleveland+bissell&dq=%22The+present+danger%22+cleveland+bissell&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj68-CIhenSAhXpCMAKHdsXCKQQ6AEIHjAB.
“As a little skiff attached to a great ship, when the storm blows high, takes in her small share of the raging waters and tosses in the same south wind.”
Immensae veluti conexa carinae
cumba minor, cum saevit hiems, pro parte furentis
parva receptat aquas et eodem volvitur austro.
iv, line 120
Silvae, Book I
