mills of the gods grind slowly, the

One's destiny is inevitable even if it takes considerable time to arrive. For example, I'm sure he'll be wealthy one day, though the mills of the gods grind slowly. This expression comes from ancient Greek, translated as "The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small." In English it appeared in George Herbert's Jacula Prudentum (1640) as "God's mill grinds slow but sure."

One’s destiny or one’s deserved fate may not come fast, but it will arrive eventually. The earliest instance of this expression is attributed to the third-century Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus, who was quoting another poet when he said, “The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small.” Later it was put as, “God’s mill grinds slow but sure” (George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum, 1640), and still later Longfellow, translating a German poet, said they “grind exceeding small.”