Patience

A schoolboy was playing truant in the street when he saw an old woman grinding an iron pestle on a stone. Being curious, the boy asked the old woman what she was doing.

"I am going to grind this pestle into a needle to sew cloth with," answered the old woman. The child laughed. "But this is such a big pestle, how can you hope to grind it down to a needle?"

"It doesn't matter," replied the old woman. "Today I grind it, tomorrow I'll grind it again, and the day after tomorrow again. The pestle will get smaller every day, and one day it will be a needle."

The child saw the point and went to school.

— Ch'en Len-shi

SOURCE: Tri Thong Dang 1993. Beyond The Known: The Ultimate Goal of the Martial Arts. Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Co., Inc.