patience
   

One moment of patience may ward
off great disaster. One moment of
impatience may ruin a whole life.

Chinese Proverb

   
When clouds form in the skies we know that rain will follow but we must wait for it.  Nothing will be achieved by attempting to interfere with the future before the time is ripe.  Patience is needed.

I Ching

   
   
Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

      
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
  
We use odd expressions to talk about patience that make it sound like a quantifiable, storable commodity like olive oil, gasoline, or money in the bank:  "I'm getting low on patience."  "My patience is coming to an end."  "I am about to run out of patience."  . . . . I don't think we have an internal reservoir in which we store up Patience for a time when we'll need it.  I think it's more like the energy-saving water heater I have at my house.  There is no holding tank of hot water.  The heater clicks on when I turn the hot water tap on, and the cold water flowing through it gets heated en route to the shower.  It keeps on heating water as long as I'm using it, and then it clicks off again.  I don't need hot water in the middle of the night while I'm sleeping, and I don't need Patience then, either.

Sylvia Boorstein
   

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

George Savile

   

That is the trouble with many inventors; they lack patience. They lack the
willingness to work a thing out slowly and clearly and sharply in their mind,
so that they can actually "feel it work." They want to try their first idea right
off; and the result is they use up lots of money and lots of good material,
only to find eventually that they are working in the wrong direction. We
all make mistakes, and it is better to make them before we begin.

Nikola Tesla

   

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I have just three things to teach:
Simplicity, patience, and compassion.
These three are your greatest treasures.
Simple in actions and in thought,
You return to the source of being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
You accord with the way things are.
Compassionate toward yourself,
You reconcile all beings in the world.

from the Tao Te Ching

   

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

Jean de la Bruyere

   

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

Hal Borland

    

Another virtue that the chemist's trade develops is patience, not to
be in a hurry.  Today chemistry is completely changed; it is rapid
chemistry.  Today the analysis of a mineral is no longer manual.  It
is done by machine and takes a few minutes, where before it took
weeks.  Naturally, it was inconvenient having to work a whole week
to analyze the mineral, but this made it possible to develop other
virtues, which in fact are those of perseverance, not getting discouraged,
assiduous application. . . . It is clear that from a practical point of view
a machine-made analysis is more convenient.  But manual analysis, like
all manual work, has a formative value; it is too similar to
our origins as mammals to be neglected.

Primo Levi

   

If I were asked what single qualification was necessary for one
who has care of children, I should say patience--patience with
their tempers, with their understandings, with their progress.

Francois Fenelon

  

The greatest power is often simple patience.

Eli Joseph Cossman

   

patience

Beware the fury of a patient man!

John Dryden

Infinite patience brings immediate results.

Wayne Dyer

Patience and time do more than strength or passion.

Jean de la Fontaine

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

Arnold H. Glasgow
   

Patience is the foundation of discovering simplicity.  Patience is a gesture
of profound kindness. . . . Patience teaches us to seek an inner refuge
of simplicity, balance, and sensitivity even in the most turbulent moments.
It is about learning to be a good friend to ourselves. . . . Patience is one
of life's great arts, a lesson we learn not just once, but over and over.

Christina Feldman

     

The aster has not wasted spring and summer because it has not blossomed.  It
has been all the time preparing for what is to follow, and in autumn it is
the glory of the field, and only the frost lays it low.  So there are many
people who must live forty or fifty years, and have the crude sap of their
natural dispositions changed and sweetened before the blossoming time can
come; but their lives have not been wasted.

Henry Ward Beecher

   

    

No great 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

    

Patience is never wasted; patience is a process through which
a soul passes and becomes precious.  Souls who have risen above
the world's limitations and sorrows, the world's falseness and
deception, they are the souls who have passed through patience.

Hazrat Inayat Khan

   

How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes,
packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant
cameras teach patience to its young?

Paul Sweeney

   
There is one form of hope which is never unwise, and which
certainly does not diminish with the increase of knowledge.
In that form it changes its name, and we call it patience.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton
   

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A man watches his pear tree day after day, impatient for the ripening
of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil
both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait,
and the ripe fruit at length falls into his lap.

Abraham Lincoln
    

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

   

You may have great plans and may be impatient to carry them out now.
Possibly you can.  We usually can do far more than we have believed.
But possibly the best time has not arrived and the best place selected.
Then be patient while you persevere.  Great things require time, and the
important projects must pass through many stages.  However, if you are
determined to accomplish what you have in mind, and do your utmost as
well as give yourself the required time, you will certainly do it.  All things
come to those who wait patiently while they work efficiently.

unattributed

   

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

Eknath Easwaran
  

Patience and tolerance are handmaidens.  They walk down
the path of life, hand-in-hand.  They are not separate
entities, so to speak.  They are one.

Frater Achad

  

Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles, and
the water is clear?  Can you remain unmoving until
the right action arises by itself?

Lao-tzu

patience  

From the spiritual side:
   
Practicing patience is an opportunity to let go and let God, and to transmute
negative emotions into positive virtues.  With patience, you are relaxed
and centered; you have energy and attention that you can readily draw
on; and you can proceed with the assurance that things are in their rightful
place, even though you may not necessarily like them.  Patience is absolutely
essential if you wish to keep treading the spiritual path. . . . Patience will keep
you centered, surrendered, detached, and content to just continue with
the assurance that, "Yes, everything in its good time."


Michael Goddart
  

One of the ways to develop patience is to contemplate how patient God has
been with you.  When you were in times of denial, or self-abuse, or self-absorption,
or hatred, God was infinitely patient.  God does not scold or punish you when you
are off the sacred path, nor does God desert you.
This is the same kind of patience that you want to develop.

Wayne Dyer

   

Patience with others is Love, Patience with self is Hope, Patience with God is Faith.

Adel Bestavros

   

       

Yes, life can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's actually rather dependable and reliable.  Some principles apply to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning.  I use it a lot when I teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.  What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or generous, compassionate or arrogant?  In this book, I've done my best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life, writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.  Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too!
Universal Principles of Living Life Fully.  Awareness of these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration out of the lives we lead.

    
   

       

Explore all of our quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on the same topic (there are five pages on adversity, for example).

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