181. JACOB A. RIIS: The stonecutter
Jacob A. Riis (1849-1914) was a Danish-American social reformer, journalist and photographer. Immigrating to New York from Denmark when he was 21, he found work as a police reporter covering the Lower East Side. Riis was deeply affected by the terrible conditions people were living in and set about reporting on everything he saw. His pioneering photojournalism work culminated in the book How The Other Half Lives, which for the first time documented the plight of the working class in New York.
Riis’s now-famous ‘stonecutter’ quote is taken from his autobiography The Making of an American. Riis is writing about the huge uphill battle he had trying to improve the conditions of the police lodging dens and tenement slums, which were cesspools of disease and squalor:
“And I know now that I was right. But it takes a lot of telling to make a city know when it is doing wrong. However, that was what I was there for. When it didn’t seem to help, I would go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I knew it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before together. When my fellow-workers smiled, I used to remind them of the Israelites that marched seven times around Jericho and blew their horns before the walls fell.
“Well, you go ahead and blow yours,” they said; “you have the faith.”
And I did, and the walls did fall, though it took nearly twice seven years. But they came down, as the walls of ignorance and indifference must every time, if you blow hard enough and long enough, with faith in your cause and in your fellow-man. It is just a question of endurance. If you keep it up, they can’t.”
You can see a collection of Riis’s photographs here.
Previous comics featuring the boy Dragonslayer: Calvin Coolidge. Oswald Chambers. Samuel Beckett. Winston Churchill. Robert Kennedy.
– Riis had help shutting down the police lodging dens from future president Theodore Roosevelt, who was NY police commissioner at the time. The two went on to become lifelong friends.
– The stonecutter quote is the mantra of the NBA team San Antonio Spurs (shout out to Aussie player Patty Mills!). A favourite of coach Gregg Popovich, the quote is stuck on the wall in the Spurs locker room (and is translated into French, Spanish and Portuguese to accommodate the team’s international roster). If that’s not enough, Popovich’s small wine label is called Rock and Hammer and the team’s fan website is named Pounding the Rock.
– Thanks to Michael, Will, Anthony and Danilo for submitting this quote.
Discussion (193) ¬
This is great, Gav.
Amazing thing how far determination can take us. Also, I like the way how instead on stagnating on pulling on the sword, the dragonslayer took another route to his problems. Ingenuity!
why did this appear when I needed it?
Faith, dear friend. Destiny always has a way of making people with faith see and experience the right things when they need them most. All the best.
EXCALIBURRRRR!!!
Nope! “The Sword of Kings, Forged when the World was young, and Man was but a dream”; is not going to yield to someone bashing at it with a rock, no matter how persistent he is.
Excalibur it is not, it’s just a sword stuck in a rock.
da-da-da-DAAAAAAA! (You got the Never Give Up Sword!)
thank you…that was needed. how soon can i order a canvas of this?
Thank you again Gav! This is such a well-timed message for me, you wouldn’t believe, right on my birthday too.. and the start of my ‘new year’. Thank you for creating such beautiful meaningful inspirations. Love the simplicity of this artwork too.
I can really relate to this. Throughout high school and uni, I had friends that were amazing artists. I envied their talent and thought I could never get to where they were. I eventually realised that talent has nothing to do with it. I was watching them hit the stone for the 101st time and cracking the rock, but not seeming them wearing it down every day for their entire lives. Meanwhile, I was there just starting to hit the rock and being disappointed when it didn’t crack.
At least with art, I don’t believe in talent anymore. Some people get head starts, some people start late, but aside from that its all about the hours you put in.
Even I start late in pursuing my dreams and yeah, when you start late, one thing sure is on your side – Calmness, Vision far ahead and a lot of accumulated Wisdom over the years. All that is good stuff. 🙂
Today after hitting on a client for more than 5 months, the last hit made him yield and got the job this afternoon 🙂 I feel like that guy right now
this is a good one!
Dear Gav,
This marvelous work could not have come on a more appropriate time for me. I am a software engineer and I used to write essays and short stories from my childhood. I occasionally suffer from depression and it is my writing that kept me going. I started a travel blog around 4 months back and it was all going great for sometime, later due to the demands of my regular work and house hold works I couldn’t find time to write anything for a month. I slipped into a state of severe depression and I felt so worthless. I decided to give up writing as I decided to let my life end as that of the “average man” you described in one of your comics. However, the moment I decided to give up writing, I felt like a part of me is dead. My heart ached. I felt that I turned into a machine. After two days I took out my laptop and start writing again. I know I cannot give up, because if I do, there will not be “me” anymore. I would never give up again.
Dear Gav,
This marvelous work could not have come on a more appropriate time for me. I am a software engineer and I used to write essays and short stories from my childhood. I occasionally suffer from depression and it is my writing that kept me going. I started a travel blog around 4 months back and it was all going great for sometime, later due to the demands of my regular work and house hold works I couldn’t find time to write anything for a month. I slipped into a state of severe depression and I felt so worthless. I decided to give up writing as I decided to let my life end as that of the “average man” you described in one of your comics. However, the moment I decided to give up writing, I felt like a part of me is dead. My heart ached. I felt that I turned into a machine. After two days I took out my laptop and start writing again. I know I cannot give up, because if I do, there will not be “me” anymore. I would never give up again.
Thank you for the lovely cartoon.
Salini
@Salini – I went through the exact same with acting. I did experience the identity crisis when I thought of quitting acting. At the moment am in a turbulent mode. The reason I believe is your passion fulfills your spiritual quest. I am off to Tushita to clear out my mind on the same.
Dear Gav,
I just got teary eyed after reading this. I’m really going through tough times, having financial problems, and my career as a marine biologist is just stuck in a rut. But I’m still pushing. I look forward to the day that I will finally break that stone and get a hold of that magical sword.
Sincerely,
Josh
That is one inspiring quote.
On a related note, I would also like to point out the real life story of Manjhi – The Mountain Man. We single handedly carved a road in mountain working for 22 years so that the journey for his fellow villagers is reduced from 55 KM to 15 KM. More about him here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi
Totally! I was thinking about the same thing. The Mountain Man who carved a road chipping through a mountain for 22 years. 🙂
Thank you for such great comics gav, I really love reading them. They remind me of the important values I must consistently practise to master myself.
We love to create narratives for how other people live. These types of work crush them so they can be rebuilt. Such a good thing!
For me this isnt uplifting, because years i was the stone. So i see this as sad thing, i feel for the stone.
While I don’t know your situation, perhaps you’re just thinking of this wrong? You claim you were the stone, being broken down. Though you also say for years you *were* the stone. Perhaps rather than seeing yourself as the stone, your situation at the time was the stone you yourself were working to break. I find it sad you would compare yourself to a stone, a stone has little purpose in existing and is unable to change its own fate. You are a person, you have value, you have agency in the world, and those things are your strength. A rock can always be broken, a person is much stronger.
Rejoice – if you were the stone maybe see yourself as the one charged with taking care of the precious sword until someone deserving came along, and once they did, you could become the pebbled path leading all the others along their life path as well. Personally I love stone – each day I watch the sun shine on our stone wall and I draw great strength and peace from this. It is what it is – just work with it
This is great! But I’m just wondering, will you ever do more original writing again? I really love seeing what you come up with in your own words!
This posting is just COOL!
Amazing design .. I love this quote because it shows how all our effort accumulates and then result in making our work look good. Thanks for designing it.
Its so true alongwith your creative ideas it hits harder everytime… Cheers ! Thanks !
Forget the sword. Keep the rock.
Nice.
Yet, some things are impossible.
(Sometimes you need a gloomy soul to tell you, it is impossible to break big stones by hitting them with small ones. Sometimes instead of optimism, you need a hammer.)
Nice motivational story
Hi Gav, wonderful art, wonderful story and so uplifting. Whatever time I spend on zenpencils, it permeates to the whole day.
Thanks for being there and making such good art with a big heart.
Wonderful, one of your best. Somehow this one feels more grounded and mature. Thanks for creating & sharing it.
I was researching for a long time…can’t wait to see more posts from you in the near future. So keep updating new things.
You have a really awesome way of representing deep concepts in such fun loving way. Hat off to you man
The San Antonio Spurs lives by this. Especially Coach Popovich.
Amazin work, as always, you make us, think, feel, cry, and grow, thanks
Nice post.
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THanks for this comic.
like it.
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Hey Gavin! This is my first comment on your blog and this post compelled me to do so – this comic hit home soooo hard! Thanks a lot for this post and keep doing what you are doing, brother 🙂
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