Beaten Into Higher Value
--------------------------


A bar of steel is worth $5.
When it is wrought into horseshoes, it is worth $10.
If made into needles, it is worth $350.
If wrought into penknife blades, it is worth $32,000.
And if it is wrought into springs for watches, it is worth $250,000.

What a drilling the poor bar must undergo to be worth a higher value.

But the more it is manipulated, 
the more it is hammered and passed through the fire, 
and beaten and pounded and polished, 
the greater the value.

Those who suffer most are capable of yielding most.




(An excerpt from Paul Lee Tan's Encyclopedia of 15,000 Illustrations)