Patience
Fortitude, Sticking-to-it, Not Giving Up
Determination, Waiting, Perseverance, Resolve

Quotations, Sayings, Aphorisms, Clichés, Quips, Quotes, Wisdom, Poetry


Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo

The Good Life Website     Cloud Hands Blog     Spirit of Gardening     Willpower    Stoicism

 

Cloud Hands Blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patience is the art of caring slowly.
-  John Ciardi

 

The strongest of all warriors are these two: Time and Patience. 
–  Leo Tolstoi   

 

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.
-  Napolean Hill

 

Patience can't be acquired overnight. It is just like building up a muscle.  Every day you need to work on it.
-  Eknath Easwaran

 

Peaceful warriors have the patience to wait until the mud settles and the water clears. They remain unmoving until the right time, so the right action arises by itself. They do not seek fulfillment, but wait with open arms to welcome all things.
-  Dan Millman

 

Patience and time do more than strength or passion.
-  Jean de La Fontaine

 

You must learn to live in the present and accept yourself for what you are now.  What you lack in flexibility and agility you must make up with knowledge and constant practice.
-  Bruce Lee

 

If we could have a little patience, we should escape much mortification; time takes away as much as it gives.
-  Marquise de Sevingne

 

Our patience will achieve more than our force.
-  Edmund Burke

 

He that can have patience can have what he will.
-  Benjamin Franklin

 

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
-  John Quincy Adams 

 

Willpower - Quotations 

 

Beware the fury of a patient man.
-  John Dryden

 

We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure.
-  William Channing

 

If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.
-   Hal Borland

 

To lose patience is to lose the battle.
-  Mahatma Gandhi

 

Patience is power; with time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes silk.
-  A Chinese Proverb

 

Infinite patience brings immediate results.
-  Wayne W. Dyer

 

The Art of Happiness, 10th Anniversary Edition: A Handbook for Living by the Dali Lama 
Chop Wood, Carry Water by Rick Fields
Dharmapada Sutra by the Buddha
The Druidry Handbook: Spiritual Practice Rooted in the Living Earth by John Michael Greer
The Gentle Path of Spiritual Progress by Hua-Ching Ni
Heart of Yoga: The Sacred Marriage of Yoga and Mysticism by Karuna Erickson
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, 500 BCE. 
Lifestyle Advice for Wise Persons compiled by Mike Garofalo, 2011. 

 

The faster you go, the shorter you are.
-  Albert Einstein

 

Patience is passion tamed.
-  Lyman Abbott

 

The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.
-  Arnold H. Glasgow

 

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable.
-  Joseph Addison   

 

Never think that God's delays are God's denials.  Hold on; hold fast; hold out.  Patience is genius.
-  George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon

 

Patience is bitter, but it's fruit is sweet.
-  Linda Clarkson

 

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

 

Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you.  Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight... When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.
-  Helen Keller

 

The greatest power is often simple patience.
-  E. Joseph Cossman   

 

They also serve who only stand and wait.
-  John Milton

 

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
-  Thomas Edison

 

You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.
-  Franklin P. Jones

 

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.
-  Soren Kierkegaard

 

Willpower - Quotations 

 

Patience with others is Love, Patience with self is Hope, Patience with God is Faith.
-  Adel Bestavros 

 

Good ideas are not adopted automatically.  They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.
-  Hyman George Rickover

 

Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown.
-  Soren Kierkegaard  

 

To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; to forego even ambition when the end is gained - who can say this is not greatness?
-  William M. Thackeray

 

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   

 

To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.
-  Samuel Johnson

 

 

A Small Treatise on the Great Virtues: The Uses of Philosophy in Everyday Life   By André Comte-Sponville

The Book of Virtues  By William J. Bennett 

The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood  By William J. Bennett 

Ethics for the Real World: Creating a Personal Code to Guide Decisions in Work and Life  By Ronald A. Howard 

The Good Life: Virtues - Quotations, Bibliography, Links, Resources   By Mike Garofalo

Ethics for the New Millennium By the Dali Lama 

The Good Life  By Charles Colson 

 

 

Let the gentle bush dig its root deep and spread upward to split the boulder.
-  Carl Sandburg

 

Patience is a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.
-  Ambrose Bierce

 

The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.  
-  Arnold H. Glasgow

 

I think and think for months and years, ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
-  Albert Einstein  

 

Patience and Diligence, like faith, remove mountains.
-  William Penn

 

The practice of patience toward one another, the overlooking of one another's defects, and the bearing of one another's burdens is the most elementary condition of all human and social activity in the family, in the professions, and in society.
-  Lawrence G. Lovasik

 

Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice.
-  George Jackson  

 

I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000-step process.
-  Thomas Edison

 

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
-  Jean Jacques Rousseau

 

There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with patience.
-  Jean De La Bruyere

 

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
-  William Edgar Borah   

 

Loving Kindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg
Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality by Matthew Fox
A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life by Jack Kornfield
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Chogyam Trungpa
The Solitary Druid: A Practitioner's Guide by Robert Lee Skip Ellison
Sweeping Changes: Discovering the Joy of Zen in Everyday Tasks by Gary Thorp
Time and the Art of Living by Robert Grudin
The Tao of Daily Life by Derek Lin 

 

Patience is the key to contentment.
-  Mohammed

 

With love and patience, nothing is impossible.
-  Daisaku Ideda  

 

Teach us to care and not to care. Teach us to sit still.
-  T. S. Elliot

 

An ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains.
-  A Dutch Proverb  

 

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.
-  Winston Churchill

 

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

To lose patience is to lose the battle.
-  Mahatma Gandhi  

 

I am extraordinarily patient provided I get my own way in the end.
-  Margaret Thatcher  

 

Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.
-  Thomas Henry Huxley

 

Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves ... Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point it, to live everything.  Live the questions now. Perhaps, then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
-  Rainer Maria Rilke 

 

Willpower - Quotations 

 

Forgive, forget.  Bear with the faults of others as you would have them bear with yours.  Be patient and understanding.  Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious.
-  Phillips Brooks   

 

Trying to understand is like straining through muddy water.  Be still and allow the mud to settle.
-  Lao Tzu

 

If you add a little to a little, and then do it again, soon that little shall be much.
-  Hesiod

 

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
-  John Quincy Adams

 

Patience is the key to paradise.
-  A Turkish Proverb  

 

There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.
-  Linda Hogan  

 

Learn to relax. Your body is precious, as it houses your mind and spirit.  Inner peace begins with a relaxed body.
-  Norman Vincent Peale

 

Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
-  Johann Friedrich von Schiller  

 

Patience is the mother of will.
-  Gurdjieff

 

There is no royal road to anything, one thing at a time, all things in succession.  That which grows fast, withers as rapidly. That which grows slowly, endures.
-  Josiah Gilbert Holland  

 

Everything comes gradually and at its appointed hour.
-  Ovid   

 

Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.
-  Barbara Johnson

 

Someone has defined genius as intensity of purpose: the ability to do, the patience to wait... Put these together and you have genius, and you have achievement.
-  Leo J. Muir   

 

Like all great things, the virtues blend into one another. They are interconnected.  Patience, courage and fortitude especially share common requirements. Patience, however, as we see it, does not relate as much to fear of risking something, as does courage. Nor does it relate as much to enduring through action as does fortitude. Patience is more about waiting, tolerating, and forgiving. We are patient when we give others their own space and time. People who are patient are not easily provoked or revengeful and tend to remain calm during stressful situations."
-  Don Jacobs

 

Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
-  Benjami Disraeli  

 

We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful. Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.
-  Mary Antin

 

Humility is attentive patience.
-  Simone Weil

 

All fruits do not ripen in one season.
-  Laurie Junot  

 

Willpower - Quotations 

 

Let nothing disturb thee;
Let nothing dismay thee;
All things pass;
God never changes.
Patience attains
All that it strives for.
-  St. Teresa de Cepeda

 

It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.
-  Elizabeth Taylor

 

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.
-  Isaac Newton

 

 

  
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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 task anew.
-  Saint Francis De Sales  

 

The principal part of faith is patience.
-  George MacDonald

 

There was a time when Patience ceased to be a virtue. It was long ago.
-  Charlotte Perkins Gilman  

 

Consider the hour-glass; there is nothing to be accomplished by rattling or shaking; you have to wait patiently until the sand, grain by grain, has run from one funnel into the other.
-  John Christian Morgenstern

 

The years teach what the days never know.
-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.
-  A Buddhist Proverb

 

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.  It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.
-  Carl Jung   

 

One minute of patience, ten years of peace.
-  A Greek Proverb  

 

Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.
-  Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

 

The Fates have given mankind a patient soul.
-  Homer

 

Patience is the greatest of all virtues.
-  Cato the Elder

 

No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time.  Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
-  Epictetus  

 

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.
-  Victor Hugo

 

The keys to patience are acceptance and faith. Accept things as they are, and look realistically at the world around you. Have faith in yourself and in the direction you have chosen.
-  Ralph Marston  

 

People say they wish they had my patience. I tell them I wasn't born with it. I had to learn it. Everybody has patience. Some of us just make better use of it than others.
-  Bruce Law

 

Patience is the best remedy for every trouble.
-  Titus Maccius Plautus

 

Patience is the companion of wisdom.
-  Saint Augustine  

 

Have patience and endure; this unhappiness will one day be beneficial.
-  Ovid

 

Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience.
-  George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon  

 

There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.
-  Franz Kafka

 

One moment of patience may ward off great disaster. One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life.
-  A Chinese Proverb   

 

You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience.
-  Stanislaw J. Lec

 

Regardless of how much patience we have, we would prefer never to use any of it.
-  James T. Obrien

 

We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.
-  Helen Keller  

 

Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.
-  Lord Chesterfield

 

All's well in the end, if you've only the patience to wait.
-  Rabelais

 

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

 

If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.
-  A Chinese Proverb

 

Patience is a strategy, a tool, a realistic coping with facts.
-  Mike Garofalo

 

All things come to him who waits - provided he knows what he is waiting for.
-  Woodrow Wilson 

 

How poor are they who have not patience!  What wound did ever heal but by degrees.
-  William Shakespeare  

 

Willpower - Quotations 

 

Patience makes lighter what sorrow may not heal.
-  Horace  

 

There will be a time when loud-mouthed, incompetent people seem to be getting the best of you. When that happens, you only have to be patient and wait for them to self destruct. It never fails.
-  Richard Rybolt

 

Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal.  Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.
-  Brian Adams

 

You are educated when you have the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence.
-  Robert Frost  

 

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.
-  Moliere  

 

Patient waiting is often the highest way of doing God’s will.
-  Jeremy Collier

 

It is better to be patient, than it is to become one.

All human wisdom is summed up in two words: wait and hope.  

Patience is waiting. Not passively waiting. That is laziness. But to keep going 
when the going is hard and slow - that is patience.”

Never run after a bus or a man. There will always be another one.

The secret of patience is doing something else in the meanwhile.

Patience is good only when it is the shortest way to a good end; 
otherwise, impatience is better.

Hope is patience with the lamp lit.

Acquaintance without patience is like a candle with no light.

Patience can conquer destiny.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography and Links

 

About.Com - Patience Quotations   


Motivation Corner - Patience   


Patience is No Virtue 


Patience Quotations
   Compiled by Danille Hollister.  


Patience Quotations   Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo.  


Pulling Onions.  750 gardening aphorisms by Michael P. Garofalo.


A Simple Life - Patience Quotes   


Teaching Virtures


Think-Exist Quotations: Patience


Valley Spirit Hatha Yoga Index  


Virtues - Quotations on Patience


Willpower Quotations   Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo.  Will Power: The Will to Act to Change, The Long Path to Self-Mastery, The Short Path to Self-Control: Effort, Determination, Perseverance, Resolve, Self-Discipline. 


Wisdom Quotations - Patience

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cloud Hands Blog

  

 

The Good Life Website


Compiled by Mike Garofalo
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Last Updated:  April 29, 2012 

Green Way Research, Red Bluff, California

Cloud Hands Blog