Fight for every inch and you'll rarely move a foot.
From The Fears That Bind, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
Switch spent the better part of the morning on one acorn. A jay wanted it, Switch wanted it, and the two of them went around that oak eleven times by my count while the rest of the ground stayed thick with acorns nobody was guarding. I used to admire that kind of stubbornness. I thought holding your ground was the whole of having any. Fight for every inch and you'll rarely move a foot; the jay left first, and Switch sat with his prize looking like a bird who had won something, which is to say tired. There were four hours of good light left and he slept through most of them.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- Rarely does all good sense dwell on one side of a fence.
- A cornered animal does not heed wise counsel.
- A hungry tiger is patient only when waiting for the best moment to attack.
- People fight hardest to defend their right not to say what they are fighting about.
- Louder isn't righter.
- We will go further shoulder to shoulder than nose to nose.