Quotes about patience
page 2

“I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.”

Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…

“I definitely think that I would be a different person without sports; they taught me so much. Just about myself, patience, teamwork, listening... it's taught me so much that I feel like I've applied to being a mom.”

Alex Morgan (1989) American soccer player

"The Advice Alex Morgan Would Give Her Daughter About Getting Into Sports" https://www.romper.com/life/alex-morgan-olympics-daughter-interview (July 10, 2021)

Feeling, Moms, Thinking, Sport

“Patience is the only way you can endure the gray periods.”

Teri Hatcher (1964) American actress, presenter, writer

Source: Burnt Toast: And Other Philosophies of Life

Way

“We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence.”

Cornel West (1953) African-American philosopher and political/civil rights activist

Source: Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life

Love, Loyalty, Relationship

“Anyone who claimed that old age had brought them patience was either lying or senile.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Age, Lying

“Inner peace is impossible without patience. Wisdom requires patience. Spiritual growth implies the mastery of patience. Patience allows the unfolding of destiny to proceed at its won unhurried pace.”

Brian L. Weiss

Source: Muchas Vidas, Muchos Maestros

Wisdom, Peace

“If something doesn't work exactly right, or maybe needs some special treatment, you don't just throw it away. Everything can't be fully operational all the time. Sometimes, we need to have the patience to give something the little nudge it needs.”

Sarah Dessen book Keeping the Moon

Source: Keeping the Moon

Time

“A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.”

Molière (1622–1673) French playwright and actor

Behavior, Wise

“Patience is… clearly not fatalistic, shoulder-shrugging resignation. It is the acceptance of a divine rhythm to life; it is obedience prolonged. Patience stoutly resists pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing.”

Neal A. Maxwell (1926–2004) Mormon leader

Life

“I have no feelings of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me till the end of my days.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

Source: The Library at Night

Books, Feeling, Waiting, Reading

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the patience not to strangle my mother-in-law, chop her into little pieces, and dump them down a sewer.”

Jennifer Weiner (1970) American writer

Source: Little Earthquakes

God, Law, Courage, Change

“Patience is eternal genius”

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet

Variant: Genius is eternal patience.

“I could call my wandering thoughts together. I had hardly any patience with the serious work of life which, now that it stood between me and my desire, seemed to me child's play, ugly monotonous child's play.”

James Joyce book Dubliners

Source: Dubliners

Life

“Humility is attentive patience.”

Simone Weil (1909–1943) French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist

“Anyone can live in a house, but homes are created with patience, time and love.”

Jane Green (1968) British writer

Source: The Beach House

Love, Home, Time, Housing

“End of Construction. Thank you 'for your patience. " Inscription on Ruth Bell Graham's grave -- inspired hy a road sign she saw.”

Billy Graham (1918–2018) American Christian evangelist

Source: Nearing Home: Life, Faith, and Finishing Well

“Anything can become a children's book if you give it to a child… Children are actually the best (and worst) audience for literature because they have no patience with pretence.”

Orson Scott Card (1951) American science fiction novelist

Children, Books, Literature

“If you knew where your happiness came from, it gave you patience. You realized that a lot of the time, you were just waiting out a situation, and that took the pressure off; you no longer looked to every interaction to actually do something for you.”

Curtis Sittenfeld book Prep

Source: Prep

Happiness, Time, Waiting

“Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

“A young woman in love always looks like Patience on a monument Smiling at Grief.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Love, Smile

“He wasn't that good looking, he had the social skills of a wet cat and the patience of a caffeinated hummingbird”

Karen Chance American writer

Cats

“The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Bk. X, ch. 16
Source: War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)

Time

“For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice.”

John Burroughs (1837–1921) American naturalist and essayist

Love

“Now I am old-fashioned. A woman, I consider, should be womanly. I have no patience with the modern neurotic girl who jazzes from morning to night, smokes like a chimney, and uses language which would make a billingsgate fishwoman blush!”

Agatha Christie book Murder on the links

Source: The Murder on the Links

Girl, Fashion, Night

“It's an odd feeling-farewell-there is some envy in it. Men go off to be tested for courage and if we're tested at all, it's for patience, for doing without, for how well we can endure loneliness.”

Karen Blixen (1885–1962) Danish writer

Men, Feeling, Courage, Envy

“How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success?”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Effort, Time, Success

“Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.”

Barbara Johnson (1947–2009) American literary critic

Feeling

“Time and Patience.”

Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace

Source: War and Peace

Time

“Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

As quoted in Gems of Thought (1888) edited by Charles Northend

Truth, Appearance, Time

“You need to learn patience, you grasshopper”

Nicholas Sparks book The Last Song

Source: The Last Song

Learning

“Victory to the spider. Patience wins the day. And today my patience ends. (Apollymi)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: The Dream Hunter

Victory

“My investigative technique mostly consisted of going through the list of interested parties and making as much noise as possible, until the culprit lost his patience and tried to shut me up.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

“I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.”

Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) British comic actor and filmmaker

Beauty, Question

“My feelings for you are not conditional. I don't judge you. I don't lose patience with you. I don't punish you. I just love you. That's all. Pure and simple.”

Alyson Nöel book Dark Flame

Source: Dark Flame

Love, Feeling

“The two hardest tests on the spiritual road are the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what we encounter.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Variant: You have passed through the two hardest tests on the spiritual road: the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what you encounter.
Source: Veronika Decides to Die

Disappointment, Courage, Waiting, Courageous

“but curiosity is a restless and scrupulous passion, and no one girl can endure, with patience, that hers should be baffled by another.”

J. Sheridan Le Fanu book Carmilla

Source: Carmilla

Girl, Passion

“I know you have the patience of a rapidly decomposing turd.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

“Allah tests our patience and our fortitude. He tests out strength of faith. be patient and there will endless rewards for you, insha'Allah" - Utaz Badr”

Leila Aboulela book Lyrics Alley

Source: Lyrics Alley

Faith

“This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Source: The Woman in White

“They dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

"Introductory Epistle : Argument of the Third Dialogue"
On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (1584)
Context: After it hath been seen how the obstinate and the ignorant of evil disposition are accustomed to dispute, it will further be shewn how disputes are wont to conclude; although others are so wary that without losing their composure, but with a sneer, a smile, a certain discreet malice, that which they have not succeeded in proving by argument — nor indeed can it be understood by themselves — nevertheless by these tricks of courteous disdain they pretend to have proven, endeavouring not only to conceal their own patently obvious ignorance but to cast it on to the back of their adversary. For they dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience.

Truth, Learning, Appearance, Victory

“We all have our different skills. You’re patient to a fault, which sometimes doesn’t work to your advantage. I, on the other hand, have the patience of a wet cat. Only on rare occasions does that come in handy.”

Mary E. Pearson book The Kiss of Deception

Source: The Kiss of Deception

Cats

“Lydia was the kind of friend whom people referred to as a 'party favor' -- always fun to be around but she doesn't have any patience for suffering unless it's her own.”

Chelsea Handler (1975) American comedian, actress, author and talk show host

Source: My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

People, Suffering

“Patience is a fruit of the spirit that grows only under trial. It is useless to pray for patience. Well, actually I encourage you to pray for patience, but I'll tell you what you'll get TRIALS!”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

“Patience to the spider”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Acheron

“Sometimes when family members least deserve love, they need it most. Love is not appropriately expressed in threats, accusations, expressions of disappointment, or retaliation. Real love takes time, patience, help, and continuing performances.”

Marvin J. Ashton (1915–1994) Apostle of the LDS Church

Love, Family, Disappointment, Time

“Patience, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

Despair

“Talent is a long patience, and originality an effort of will and intense observation.”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

Effort, Deep

“Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.”

Abigail Adams (1744–1818) 2nd First Lady of the United States (1797–1801)

Letter to John Adams (27 November 1775)
Source: The Quotable Abigail Adams
Context: I feel anxious for the fate of our monarchy, or democracy, or whatever is to take place. I soon get lost in a labyrinth of perplexities; but, whatever occurs, may justice and righteousness be the stability of our times, and order arise out of confusion. Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance.

Perseverance

“Let go of me or slow down," she demanded as she tried to keep pace with him.
He slowed down. "I swear to God, you try the patience of a saint."
"You aren't a saint, Brodick, no matter what your mother might have told you.”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: Ransom

God

“My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument.”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

Source: Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mary Russell Mitford, 1836-1854

“To Thetis,
Long overdue, I know, but every often the things we most desire come only after much patience and struggle. That is a human truth, I think. Even Peleus knew that.
-Seth”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

Truth, Thinking

“Don't look back—forward, infinite energy, infinite enthusiasm, infinite daring, and infinite patience—then alone can great deeds be accomplished.”

Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) Indian Hindu monk and phylosopher

Pearls of Wisdom

“Why is patience so important?"
"Because it makes us pay attention.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

“But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by everybody at times, whatever be their education or state. Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience; or give it a more fascinating name: call it hope.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Pain, Happiness, Education, Hope

“There's a fine line between thinking about somebody and thinking about not thinking about somebody, but I have the patience and the self-control to walk that line for hours - days, if I have to.”

Jennifer Egan A Visit from the Goon Squad

Source: A Visit from the Goon Squad

Thinking

“Patience is only a virtue when there is something worth waiting for.”

Lauren Willig (1977) American author

Source: The Masque of the Black Tulip

Waiting

“God gives us the vision, then he takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

Source: My Utmost for His Highest: Traditional Updated Edition

God, Way

“We may not get what we want, when we want. But with a bit of perseverance and a lot of patience, we can get what we need.”

Sarah Strohmeyer (1950) American writer

Source: Sweet Love

Perseverance

“It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

“Patience is a form of wisdom. It demonstrates that we understand and accept the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time.”

Jon Kabat-Zinn (1944) American academic

Source: Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness

Wisdom, Understanding, Time

“The farmer has patience and trusts the process. He just has the faith and deep understanding that through his daily efforts, the harvest will come. And then one day, almost out of nowhere, it does.”

Robin S. Sharma (1965) Canadian self help writer

Source: The Leader Who Had No Title: A Modern Fable on Real Success in Business and in Life

Faith, Understanding, Effort

“All is love… All is love. With love comes understanding. With understanding comes patience. And then time stops. And everything is now.”

Brian L. Weiss

Love, Understanding, Time

“Patience is always rewarded and romance is always round the corner!”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

“Patience is not a virtue. It is an achievement.”

Vera Nazarian (1966) American writer

Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

“The trick to surviving an interrogation is patience. Don’t offer up anything. Don’t explain. Answer the question and only the question that is asked so you don’t accidentally put your head in a noose.”

Laurie Halse Anderson (1961) American children's writer

Source: The Impossible Knife of Memory

Question

“But my patience isn't limitless… unlike my authority.”

Dan Abnett (1965) British comic book writer, novelist

Source: Xenos

“Patience is not my dominant virtue.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

D'Artagnan

“Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience- or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Happiness, Hope

“Patience mimics the power of infinity.”

Brandon Mull (1974) American fiction writer

Source: Rise of the Evening Star

“Patience is a virtue,
Virtue is a grace.
Grace is a little girl
Who would not wash her face.”

Dick King-Smith (1922–2011) English writer of children's books

Source: Lady Daisy

Girl

“She surprised him by agreeing. "Yes, I was simply curious, and no, I would never criticize you in front of your followers. Do you have the patience to endure one more question, husband?"

"What is it?"

"When do you suppose you'll leave me behind?”

Julie Garwood (1946) American writer

Source: The Wedding

Question

“Faith. Closely followed—in view of the overall shortage of time—by patience.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

Faith, Time

“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;
Though with patience he stands waiting, with exactness grinds he all.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet

Longfellow's translation of Friedrich von Logau, "Retribution", Sinngedichte III, 2, 24. http://www.kith.org/journals/jed/2002/05/21/452.html.

God, Waiting

“It is very strange that the years teach us patience - that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.”

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress

Source: A Wreath of Roses

Time, Waiting

“Our patience will achieve more than our force.”

Edmund Burke book Reflections on the Revolution in France

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

“The time has arrived when patience becomes a crime and mayhem appears garbed in a manner of virtue”

Edgar Rice Burroughs book Tarzan of the Apes

Source: Tarzan of the Apes

Appearance, Time

“Very often the things we most desire come only after much patience and struggle.”

Richelle Mead (1976) American writer

Source: Succubus Blues

“There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, 'There now, hang on, you'll get over it.' Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Bean Trees

Source: The Bean Trees

Sadness, Feeling, Personality, Sad

“Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice.”

Erich Fromm book The Art of Loving

Source: The Art of Loving

Love, Faith, Feeling, Nature

“God know that a mother need fortitude and courage and tolerance and flexibility and patience and firmness and nearly every other brave aspect of the human soul.”

Phyllis McGinley (1905–1978) writer and poet

God, Soul, Courage

“I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.”

Booker T. Washington book Up from Slavery

Source: Up from Slavery

People, Idea

“He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience.”

T.S. Eliot book The Waste Land

Source: The Waste Land

Dead

“Have patience; the lovers will suffer lovers always suffer.”

Clive Barker book Galilee

Source: Galilee

Lovers, Suffering

“Sadness is more or less like a head cold - with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Bean Trees

Source: The Bean Trees

Sadness, Sad, Depressing

“I will not be distracted by noise, chatter, or setbacks. Patience, commitment, grace, and purpose will guide me.”

Louise L. Hay (1926–2017) American writer

“come back
believer in shade
believer in silence and elegance
believer in ferns
believer in patience
believer in the rain”

W.S. Merwin (1927–2019) American poet

Silence

“I have many questions, but no patience to think them through.”

Maira Kalman (1949) Israeli American artist and creator of children's books

Source: The Principles of Uncertainty

Question, Thinking

“Patience and fortitude conquer all things.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.”

Mark Z. Danielewski book House of Leaves

Source: House of Leaves

Feeling, Suffering, Passion

“5499. What is the Use of Patience, if we cannot find it when we want it?”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1747) : What signifies your Patience, if you can't find it when you want it.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

“I’m sick of hearing how far we’ve come. I’m sick of hearing how in some cases women are superseding men, progressing to positions of middle and upper management. Above all, I’m sick of hearing about the pipeline, about the path to the top supposedly thick with women who will, in the fullness of time, be rewarded for their patience and virtue. The following figures speak for themselves: Three percent of Fortune 500 companies are headed by women; 16.8 percent of members of the U. S. Congress are women; 7 percent of tenured engineering faculty in four-year institutions are women. The fact is that so far as leadership is concerned, women in nearly every realm are hardly any better off than they were a generation ago.”

Barbara Kellerman (1939) American academic

Barbara Kellerman in Harvard Business Review; Cited in " Quote of the week: Barbara Kellerman http://theweek.com/articles/494754/quote-week-barbara-kellerman," at theweek.com, April 30, 2010.

Women, Men, Time

“As translators, we must be courageous, free and passionate about what we are doing. We must constantly strive to enrich our own cultural and linguistic repertoire. We must read, we must write. We must be prepared to rethink, to revise, to rewrite, constantly. We must have endless time and patience. Deadlines are there to be ignored, to be kept alive. Above all we must play with words, ideas and feelings. Delight in them. We must never lose sight of the playfulness and creative licence that are the lifeblood of art and literature, and hence of translation.”

John Minford (1946) New Zealand sinologist

Public Lecture (2018)

Art, Feeling, Literature, Idea

“The start of a film is like a gateway, a formal entrance-point. The first three minutes of a film make great demands on an audience's patience and credulity. A great deal has to be learnt very rapidly about place and attitude, character and intent and ambition.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

Watching Water

“I’ve no patience with Hindi films. I find them so unreal. But some I was taken to, like Raj Kapoor’s Satyam Shivam Sundaram.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

Reply to Raj Kapoor who had asked him loudly "I’m a bosom man. What about you?"
I Don't Know One Editor In India Who Is Well-Read

“This is the Court of Chancery, which has its decaying houses and its blighted lands in every shire, which has its worn-out lunatic in every madhouse and its dead in every churchyard, which has its ruined suitor with his slipshod heels and threadbare dress borrowing and begging through the round of every man's acquaintance, which gives to monied might the means abundantly of wearying out the right, which so exhausts finances, patience, courage, hope, so overthrows the brain and breaks the heart, that there is not an honourable man among its practitioners who would not give--who does not often give--the warning, "Suffer any wrong that can be done you rather than come here!"”

Charles Dickens book Bleak House

Source: Bleak House (1852-1853), Ch. 1

Hope, Courage, Suffering, Heart

“No nation which refuses to exercise forbearance and to respect the freedom and rights of others can long remain strong and retain the confidence and respect of other nations. No nation ever loses its dignity or good standing by conciliating its differences and by exercising great patience with, and consideration for, the rights of other nations.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1930s, Quarantine Speech (1937)

Exercises, Confidence, Freedom, Strong

“Here the men lost all patience, and complained of the length of the voyage, but the Admiral encouraged them in the best manner he could, representing the profits they were about to acquire, and adding that it was to no purpose to complain, having come so far, they had nothing to do but continue on to the Indies, till with the help of our Lord, they should arrive there.”

Cristoforo Colombo (1451–1506) Explorer, navigator, and colonizer

10 October 1492
Variant translation: Here the people could stand it no longer and complained of the long voyage; but the Admiral cheered them as best he could, holding out good hope of the advantages they would have. He added that it was useless to complain, he had come [to go] to the Indies, and so had to continue it until he found them, with the help of Our Lord.
As translated in Journals and Other Documents on the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1963) by Samuel Eliot Morison, p. 62
Journal of the First Voyage

Men, Help