Aesop’s fable tells of the ant, who works diligently all summer to store food for the winter, while the grasshopper sings and dances, but then has nothing to eat when the weather turns.  Proverbs 6 also tells us, “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise! Without having any chief, officer, or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.”

The ant—of all things—is an example of diligence, not because the ant does grand and extraordinary things, but precisely it does small and ordinary things, but it does them with perseverance and consistency, and, because its reward comes not now, but in due season. 

If you would be diligent in study—or in anything for that matter—you cannot achieve it in one giant act of amazing diligence.  Cramming for a test is not diligence in study; it is what we do when we’ve lacked diligence.  Pulling an all-nighter to write a paper is not diligence; it is the way of the grasshopper when he realizes he has no food.  Trying to memorize our recitation in a single sitting is not diligence; it is a shortcut that may not work and will not last.  Diligence is achieved bit by bit, day by day, taking a little time, to do the little things, that in due season, will make a big difference.

For, what has been said about the grandeur of Rome can be said about diligence itself: It isn’t built in a day; rather, brick by brick, my fellow citizens, brick by brick.