14 Snail Quotes For the Slow Take on Life

You can find terrestrial and aquatic snails inching along slowly on every continent, including Antarctica. No matter where you find them, these gastropods are easy to spot thanks to their spiral shells. They come in various colors - brown with yellow streaks, gold, pink, and many more.

The shade of their portable house helps them evade predators and survive extreme temperatures. Snails with darker shells need to retain heat, and those with lighter ones need to reflect heat.

To top it all off, the many different types of snails make their own houses, unlike hermit crabs. Snails have organs called the mantle that produces layers of calcium carbonate, which crystallize and harden.

So if you think snails are just pests, you’ll find plenty of interesting aspects to these slow little creatures. Discover the wonders and importance of snails as you read these curated snail quotes we have prepared.

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Best Snail Quotes

To prevent dying of excessive evaporation, snails have tricks up their shells to retain moisture. They can produce mucus all over their body, seal their opening with a mucus sheet, and seek moist environments to hide during harsh hot weather.

You might think you cannot find a snail in the desert, but surprisingly there are! They have smaller openings and can seal themselves in for years until rain arrives. So, as we read the following quotes, let's learn to adapt to any situation like these slow creatures.

"Even a snail will eventually reach its destination."
- Gail Tsukiyama

"We get wise by asking questions, and even if these are not answered, we get wise, for a well-packed question carries its answer on its back as a snail carries its shell."
- James Stephens

"In philosophy if you aren't moving at a snail's pace you aren't moving at all."
- Iris Murdoch

Quotes About Snails Moving Slowly In Nature

Snails are famous for being sluggish. That's why we use them as a common idiom - as slow as a snail. Some can cover a mile in one day and ten hours if they crawl continuously. Even at this pace, people organize racing events for them.

Read more about a snail's unique features after reading the following quotes.

"The spiral in a snail's shell is the same mathematically as the spiral in the Milky Way galaxy, and it's also the same mathematically as the spirals in our DNA. It's the same ratio that you'll find in very basic music that transcends cultures all over the world."
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt

"We should learn from the snail: it has devised a home that is both exquisite and functional."
- Frank Lloyd Wright

Quotes About Snails Pace That Will Teach Us About Perseverance And Being In The Moment

Snails only have two brain cells - one for communicating hunger and the other for spotting food. But don't underestimate them for being slow in pace and in intelligence. You will be amazed to know that scientists think this snail feature could lead to more efficient and intelligent robots.

As you read these quotes, take note of the snails. Don't complicate your situation, and be in the moment.

"By perseverance the snail reached the ark."
- Charles Spurgeon

"Time sometimes flies like a bird, sometimes crawls like a snail; but a man is happiest when he does not even notice whether it passes swiftly or slowly."
- Ivan Turgenev

"If the road is beautiful, walk the road slowly; be a turtle, be a snail and even better than this: Stop walking; live the road fully!"
- Mehmet Murat Ildan

Noteworthy Snail Quotes In Art And Literature

These little crawlers can have around 14,000 teeth. It might be horrific to imagine, but each one is microscopic. Located on their tongue, they use these tiny teeth like a file to break down the leafy greens they eat.

Discover how award-winning poets incorporate these toothy creatures in their work as you read the following excerpts.

"The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail."
- Wole Soyinka

"Even though I'm often crazy - and I am, and I know it - still I fight it because I know how sterile, how futile, how bleak... nothing grows from it, and you, meanwhile, only grow into it like a snail."
- Anne Sexton

"Art is the provocation for talking about enigma and the search for sense in human life. One can do that by telling a story or writing about a fresco by Giotto or studying how a snail climbs up a wall."
- John Berger

Snail Sayings Using The Slow Gastropoda As A Metaphor

Snails' mucus does not only prevent them from drying out. They can also use their slime trails to communicate with each other. They can also follow other's trails to move faster or their path to creep back where they came from. 

Check out how we relate snails to our daily lives with the following quotes and apply them to take your time in life.

"A man builds a house in England with the expectation of living in it and leaving it to his children; we shed our houses in America as easily as a snail does his shell."
- Harriet Beecher Stowe

"Sometimes you watch one of your favorite shows from 20 years ago and you think, 'I'm loving this, but golly, it's going at the speed of a snail.'"
- Julian Fellowes

"I love the rebelliousness of snail mail, and I love anything that can arrive with a postage stamp. There's something about that person's breath and hands on the letter."
- Diane Lane