Quotes, quotations and Passages on Patience

Patience is a necessary
ingredient of genius.

Benjamin Disraeli

Flowers do not force their way with great strife. Flowers open to perfection slowly in the sun. Don't be in a hurry about spiritual matters. Go step by step, and be very sure. White Eagle

Patience is power. Patience is not an absence of action; rather, it is "timing"; it waits on the right time to act, for the right principles and in the right way. Fulton J. Sheen If I have made any valuable discoveries, it is owing more to patient attention than to any other talent. Isaac Newton

It does not astonish or make us angry that it takes a whole year to bring into the house three great white peonies and two pale blue iris. It seems altogether right and appropriate that these glories are earned with long patience and faith. . . . and also that it is altogether right and appropriate that they cannot last. Yet in our human relations we are outraged when the supreme moments, the moments of flowering, must be waited for. . . . and then cannot last. We reach a summit, and then have to go down again. May Sarton Journal of a Solitude

Patient people enjoy the pleasure of saying to whoever is feeling anxious about delays--restaurant servers, clerks waiting on the telephone to get your credit card verified, dry cleaners who were sure your sweater would be ready--"It's okay. These things happen." Patience, in a rushed world, is a shared relief. Witnesses to patient transactions, as well as participants, all get to calm down. Sylvia Boorstein

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself.
Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but
instantly set about remedying them--every day begin the tasks anew.

Francis de Sales

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Patience is the companion of wisdom.

Saint Augustine

The most extraordinary thing about the oyster is this. Irritations
get into its shell. It does not like them. But when it cannot get
rid of them, it uses the irritation to do the loveliest thing an oyster
ever has a chance to do. If there are irritations in our lives today,
there is only one prescription: make a pearl. It may have to be
a pearl of patience, but, anyhow, make a pearl.
And it takes faith and love to do it.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold.
For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power
to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet
with great wrongs, and they will be powerless to vex your mind.

Leonardo da Vinci

Patience and tenacity of purpose are assets of infinitely greater
value than cleverness. There is great strength in patiently waiting.
The sun, having set, comes up. The tide ebbs, but always flows in again.

Fred van Amburgh

patience 2

Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes
or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer that there must be
time. Let the tree first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

Epictetus

Patience strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger,
extinguishes envy, subdues pride, bridles the tongue,
restrains the hand, and tramples upon temptation.

George Horne

There is as much difference between genuine patience and sullen endurance,
as between the smile of love, and the malicious gnashing of the teeth.

William S. Plumer

Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly
will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.

Johann von Schiller

There is no road too long to the person who advances deliberately
without undue haste; no honors too distant to the person who
prepares him or herself for them with patience.

Jean La Bruyere

One who is master of patience
is master of everything else.

Lord Halifax

How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

William Shakespeare

The greater our hurry, the longer the way;
the greater our patience, the sooner we reach the goal.

German proverb

Patience is neither weariness nor dreary surrender. It is a positive virtue,
the capacity to wait for opportunity. . . .
   There are many images that portray patience: The lioness waiting in the
high grass for her prey to pass by, making no movement for hours except for
gentle twitches of her tail. The old monk waiting for God; the ancient eyes
filled with wisdom, his mind and body filled with tranquility. Another image
is the picture of the slow growth of the solid oak tree. Imperceptibly, little
by little, the acorn becomes a tree. Slowly--that's how it becomes so strong.
   We live in a time when speed seems to be essential. Fast trains, fast cars,
fast walking, fast-food restaurants. Even our perception of growth is speeded
up with the use of the stop-frame camera.
   There is nothing wrong with speed in itself, but a question is forced upon us.
Does speed necessarily require us to be unreflective? If so, then we are rushing
into lives that are not reflected upon, not examined. This is dangerous.
Perhaps we do have to make room for patience in our lives--a little room
to breathe. Patience. Patience.

Edward J. Lavin

Patience strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger,
extinguishes envy, subdues pride, bridles the tongue,
restrains the hand, and tramples upon temptation.

George Horne

When I loved myself enough, the impulsive part of me learned
to wait for the right time. Then I become clear and unafraid.

Kim McMillen
When I Loved Myself Enough

There are before you countless opportunities that can be built
into a big success, but it is a mistake to expect to see your
corn come up the day after you plant it.

Fred van Amburgh

They who can have patience can have what they will.

Benjamin Franklin

In the natural world, events happen in their own time and there is no
pressure to achieve things faster than necessary. Nature doesn't surrender
on a whim and knows how to take its time to build. A tree growing from
a seedling or a lion stalking its prey reveals the value of patience. Try to
bring nature's patience to mind in your own life. See if you can slow down
occasionally. Strive to give people and activities your full attention for the
length of time they deserve and need. Remember that in order to create a
good piece of work, a good relationship, or allow ourselves to experience
our emotions as the come and go, we need to cultivate a kindly sense of
patience towards ourselves and others.

Claire Thompson
Mindfulness and the Natural World

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shapes of pains,
losses, and disappointments; but let us have patience,
and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.

Joseph Addison

It is not necessary for all people to be great in action.
The greatest and sublimest power is often simple patience.

Horace Bushnell

There is no great achievement that is not
the result of patient working and waiting.

Josiah Holland

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Patience is learning how to wait when you really don't want to. It's
discovering things you like to do while you're waiting, and becoming
so happy with. . . what you're doing that you forget you're waiting.
Patience is taking time every day to dream your dreams and develop
the confidence in yourself to change your dreams into reality. Patience
is being good to yourself and having the faith to hold on to your dreams,
even as days go by when you can't see how they will come true.

Patience is loving others even when they disappoint you and you don't
understand them. It's knowing how to let go and accept others as they
are and forgive them for things they have done. Patience is loving
yourself and giving yourself time to grow; it's doing things that keep you
healthy and happy, and it's knowing that you deserve the best in life
and are willing to work for it, no matter how long it takes.

Patience is being willing to face whatever challenges life gives you,
realizing that life has also given you the strength and courage to endure
and deal with each challenge. Patience is the ability to continue to love
and laugh no matter what your circumstances may be, because you
recognize that in time those circumstances will change, and that love
and laughter are what give life deeper meaning, and you the
determination to continue to have patience.

Donna Levine

Life on the farm is a school of patience;
you can't hurry the crops or make an ox in two days.

Henri Fournier Alain

On the whole, it is patience which makes the final difference
between those who succeed or fail in all things. All the greatest
people have it in an infinite degree, and among the less, the
patient weak ones always conquer the impatient strong.

John Ruskin

patience 2

When the hard times of life come, we know that no matter how tragic
the circumstances seem, no matter how long the spiritual drought,
no matter how long and dark the days, the sun is sure to break through;
the dawn will come. The warmth of His assurance will hold us in an embrace
once again, and we will know that our God has been there all along.
We will hear him say, through it all, “Hold on, my child, joy comes in the morning!”

Gloria Gaither

When you are patient, you take the time to immerse yourself in the
joy of the moment which is denied to those who hurry.

Donald Curtis

The power of patience, which has been called the grace of God,
lies largely in the fact that it usually wins where force fails.

Alice H. Rice