[Ads-l] Quote Origin: No Individual Raindrop Ever Considers Itself Responsible for the Flood

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

An instance of the saying in the subject line appears in the 2026 book
"The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic
Reckoning" by Robert Wright. This saying has been attributed to
English writer John Ruskin, English humorist Douglas Adams, and U.S.
journalist Sydney J. Harris.

The earliest match I found for this saying appeared in the syndicated
newspaper column of Harris in 1977. The article consisted of a series
of miscellaneous thoughts such as these three items:

[ref] 1977 March 2, Tacoma News Tribune, Thoughts at large by Sydney
J. Harris (Field Newspaper Syndicate), Quote Page A11, Column 1,
Tacoma, Washington. (Newspapers_com) link  [/ref]
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-news-tribune-raindrop/202912843/

[Begin excerpt]
One of the dozen most frequently misspelled words (even in learned
works) is "minuscule," usually spelled "miniscule."
No individual raindrop ever considers itself to be responsible for the flood.
What science smugly calls "natural laws" are really only partial
observations: No doubt the house fly thinks of the swatter as a
natural law.
[End excerpt]

Based on this citation, Sydney J. Harris is the leading candidate for
creator of this saying; however, the central idea appeared more than a
decade earlier in 1963 embodied in a different metaphorical framework:

[Begin excerpt]
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
[End excerpt]

Here is a link to the Quote Investigator article about the raindrop saying:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2026/08/02/raindrop-flood/

Here is a link to the 2022 Quote Investigator article about the
snowflake saying:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2022/04/26/snowflake/

Here are links to the three previous QI articles which I have not
mentioned on this mailing list.

Quote Origin: If I Wanted to Write, I Had To Be Willing To Develop a
Kind of Concentration Found Mostly in People Awaiting Execution
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2026/07/30/will-write/

Quote Origin: When a Man Knows He Is To Be Hanged in a Fortnight, It
Concentrates His Mind Wonderfully
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2026/07/29/concentrate/

Quote Origin: If You Understood What Communism Was, You Would Hope,
You Would Pray on Your Knees That We Would Someday Become Communist
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2026/07/27/pray-knees/

Feedback welcome
Garson

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