Drop by drop is the water pot filled.
- BuddhaPatience
Patience fares badly in an age measured in loading times. Yet nearly every tradition that wrote about it separates two things everyday speech runs together: waiting and enduring. The first is passive; the second is not. The Latin patientia comes from a verb meaning to suffer or bear — something actively carried, not an idle interval.
That distinction keeps returning in the quotes gathered here. Patience is described as work, as a decision renewed rather than made once, sometimes as a form of courage. Rarely as sitting still. It is also why this theme sits so close to persistence and to time: in practice the three are difficult to separate.
Dripping water hollows out stone, not through force but through persistence.
- OvidHe who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk.
- Friedrich NietzscheGrain by grain a loaf, stone by stone a palace.
- Croatian ProverbI was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.
- Marie CurieBake it first, then speak — think before you talk.
- Croatian ProverbThe scientific man does not aim at an immediate result; his duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.
- Nikola TeslaPatience is the key to paradise.
- Turkish ProverbHow poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
- William ShakespeareEverything is hard before it is easy.
- Johann Wolfgang von GoetheAdopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.
- Ralph Waldo EmersonLive the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
- Rainer Maria RilkeNature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.
- Lao TzuGreat things are done by a series of small things brought together.
- Vincent van GoghSlow and steady wins the race.
- AesopPatience is the companion of wisdom.
- Augustine of HippoWithout toil there is no learning.
- Croatian ProverbThe two most powerful warriors are patience and time.
- Leo TolstoyOnly those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly will acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
- Friedrich SchillerHabit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.
- Mark TwainHe who waits will be rewarded.
- Croatian ProverbDon't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.
- Robert Louis StevensonIt does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.
- ConfuciusPatient and saved.
- Croatian ProverbA journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
- Lao TzuThe man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
- ConfuciusPatience is the strength of the weak, impatience the weakness of the strong.
- Immanuel KantLittle by little does the trick.
- AesopHe that can have patience can have what he will.
- Benjamin FranklinTake rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.
- OvidBe not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.
- Chinese ProverbEverything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.
- Leo TolstoyEvery beginning is hard.
- German ProverbBe not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.
- Thomas à Kempis