Ill Habits gather by unseen Degrees —
As Brooks make Rivers, Rivers run to Seas.Ovid (43 BC-AD 17) Roman poet [Publius Ovidius Naso]
Metamorphosis, Book 15 “The Worship of Aesculapius,” l. 155 [tr. Dryden]
(Source)
Sometimes cited as Dryden's Abslolam and Achitophel (1681)