All the operations of Nature are gradual. [ Bacon ]

Gradual sinks the breeze,
Into a perfect calm; that not a breath
I heard to quiver thro' the closing woods,
Or rustling turn the many twinkling leaves,
Of aspen tall. The uncurling floods diffused?
In glassy breadth, seen through delusive lapse
Forgetful of their course. 'Tis silence all.
And pleasing expectation. [ Thomson ]

The best of men have ever loved repose;
They hate to mingle in the filthy fray;
Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows,
Imbitter'd more from peevish day to day. [ Thomson ]

The perception of the beautiful is gradual, and not a lightning revelation; it requires not only time, but some study. [ Ruffini ]

Gradual as the snow, at heaven's breath, melts off and shows the azure flowers beneath, her lids unclosed, and the bright eyes were seen. [ Moore ]

How absolute and omnipotent is the silence of night! And yet the stillness seems almost audible! From all the measureless depths of air around us comes a half-sound, a half-whisper, as if we could hear the crumbling and falling away of earth and all created things, in the great miracle of nature, decay and reproduction, ever beginning, never ending, - the gradual lapse and running of the sand in the great hour-glass of Time. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]