Tao Te Ching

Small steps add up

Echoes

A tree “grew from the tiniest sprout” and a journey of a thousand li “commenced with a single step”. The chapter is about acting early, so accumulation is implied. It credits no one.

1. c. 700 BCE

   “for if you add only a little to a little and do this often, soon that little will become great.”

   Hesiod, Works and Days. Earliest we can find, about 400 years earlier.

2. c. 300 BCE

   “The tree which fills the arms grew from the tiniest sprout; the tower of nine storeys rose from a (small) heap of earth; the journey of a thousand li commenced with a single step.”