Patience Quotes

Counting entries, Shakespeare comes first, followed by Swami Vivekananda, Ali, Longfellow and James Richardson. Two sourced lines cover the territory. Tolstoy’s War and Peace (1865) says everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait; Bierce, in 1911, defines patience as a minor form of despair disguised as a virtue.

Flagged: “Patience is a remedy for every sorrow,” credited to Publilius Syrus; a remark about not having the patience to check out what is happening in music, theater and science, credited to Jimi Hendrix, both disputed; and a line about the marvel of all history being the patience with which people submit to burdens, credited to George Washington and marked misattributed.

Random quote on Patience

Most quoted on patience:

If men understood the plan of evolution, instead of working each for his own personal ends they would all join together as a community and work harmoniously for the good of all with mutual tolerance and forbearance. It is obvious that if this were done all of these evils would almost immediately cease or at any rate could very shortly be removed. p. 326

Charles Webster Leadbeater Some Glimpses of Occultism: Ancient and Modern (1903)

Let us apply patience as well, for without patience nothing can be achieved. Verily, very often people give up a brilliant beginning only because of lack of patience. They forget that all great tasks are accompanied by difficulties, but by shunning those difficulties they condemn themselves to a fatiguing and endlessly reiterative course.

Helena Roerich

“They must understand that we can only lose by taking the offensive. Patience and time are my warriors, my champions,” thought Kutúzov. He knew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will fall of itself when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree is harmed, and your teeth are set on edge.

Leo Tolstoy War and Peace (1865)

But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts; Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.

John Milton

Bilateral (cross-strait) relations have always been difficult and complex, requiring patience, wisdom and effort on both sides.

Katharine Chang Katharine Chang (2017)