Diligence, Explained
Diligence means focused effort on one goal, like a hunter selecting the best target.
Diligence comprises both the impulse of the bow-string that despatches the arrow, and the feather that keeps it true to its aim. Diligo, the Latir word from which diligence is derived, means "I choose," "select," or "love." To be diligent, therefore, is to resemble an eager hunter who selects the fattest of the herd, and, leaving the rest, pursues and captures that one Napoleon the First won his victories chiefly by rapid concentration of his forces on one point of the enemy's line. A burning-glass is powerful because it foralizes a mass of sunbeams of one point. So, in all departments of activity to have one thing to do, and then to do it, is the secret of success.