96 Patience quotes of calm and persistence.

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

Leo Tolstoy

An important distinction about patience is that it is not avoidance or idle waiting. Patience is the application of effort over a period that’s longer than you wanted, or longer than you thought it would be.

Perfection is attained by slow degrees; she requires the hand of time.”

Voltaire

Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent.”

Billy Graham

Self-patience quotes help explore how developed our own personal patience currently is, because patience is something that has to be practiced throughout life’s ups and downs.

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

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 Bruyère

Have patience with all things but first of all with yourself.”

Francis de Sales

The expectations we set for ourselves are often less forgiving than what we expect of others. That makes practicing patience with ourselves harder.

Patience is the ability to calmly wait or endure hardship without complaint or anger. It usually follows that one’s patience will be rewarded in some way, with a positive outcome or objective reasoning or peace of mind.”

Kristie Anyabwile

That light bulb moment you had? The whole world didn't have it with you. Teach, speak, lead with the grace and patience you needed yesterday.”

Sharon Hodde Miller

This message could be useful on a poster in any business place where employees are often trained by one another.

All men commend patience, although few are willing to practice it.”

Thomas a Kempis

Patience is a virtue, they say, but it’s one we tend to covet more than practice.

A man who is a master of patience is a master of everything else.”

George Savile

Patience attracts happiness; it brings near that which is far.”

Swahili Proverb

Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

A useful metaphor like this one could be turned into a beautiful inspirational poster.

Everyone is bound to bear patiently the results of his own example.”

Phaedrus

It is important to be intuitive at this time and allow the natural course to show you the way to the next step.”

Oscar Auliq-Ice

Patience and curiosity play into one another. When the way forward isn’t clear, we have to look around (with curiosity) and process what we see (with patience) to form the best plan.

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.”

Hal Borland

Patience and persistence have a close relationship, too. This stirring metaphor could be fun to portray on a poster or flyer.

Some people can never understand that you have to wait, even for the best of things, until the right time comes.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

To lose patience is to lose the battle.”

Mahatma Gandhi

The battle might be with yourself, or a tough work project, or other people. No matter the case, when you lose patience, you lose the battle.

Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance.”

Virgil

You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience.”

Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you.”

Ovid

It’s a comfort for some to think about today’s challenges as serving some purpose for tomorrow. This message could be used in a card or letter to someone who’s struggling.

Learning patience can be a difficult experience, but once conquered, you will find life is easier.”

Catherine Pulsifer

Patience does have to be practiced, but once you develop it, it’s easier to keep up.

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

Elizabeth Taylor

This quote leaves some of us in a resounding state of reflection. As you’ve aged, how did your view on time and patience change?

Two things define you: your patience when you have nothing and your attitude when you have everything.”

George Bernard Shaw

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

The greatest power is often simple patience.”

E. Joseph Cossman

Endurance is nobler than strength, and patience than beauty.”

John Ruskin

This short message could be a scroll-stopper in an Instagram post.

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 Weiss , Many Lives, Many Masters

Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.”

Saadi

Patience becomes easier with practice, and all the things you choose to be patient about become easier, too.

The singular mark of patience is not endurance or fortitude but hope. To be impatient...is to live without hope.”

Tish Harrison Warren

Deep patience quotes leave us thinking. This could be a personal message of inspiration, or one to share with friends and followers in an Instagram story.

It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”

Julius Caesar

Trying to understand is like straining through muddy water. Have the patience to wait. Be still and allow the mud to settle.”

Lao Tzu , Tao Te Ching

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.”

Helen Keller

This quote could fit perfectly in a collage of things you feel are worth waiting for.

Patience is an act of love every day, when you are patient with your toddlers, or your husband who can’t remember to put the toilet seat down.”

Sharon Hodde Miller

Face-to-face conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience.”

Sherry Turkle

The very nature of a relationship teaches patience as you get to know someone.

Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious.”

Phillips Brooks

This patience quote can be used as a motto, like a personal reminder to choose patience instead of anger.

The more you know yourself, the more patience you have for what you see in others.”

Erik Erikson

Patience is not simply the ability to wait — it's how we behave while we're waiting.”

Joyce Meyer

You can picture it. Your partner is showing “patience” to you, but with huffs and puffs and body language that undoes all good intentions. As it turns out, that isn’t true patience.

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

Chinese Proverb

Humility is attentive patience.”

Simone Weil

A short patience quote that provides such rich food for thought could be perfect for a banner.

Difficult years lie ahead, patience is required.”

Yiannis Stournaras

Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance.”

Mark Z. Danielewski

“Patience is key” quotes serve as thoughtful advice in wedding cards for the happy couple.

With love and patience, nothing is impossible.”

Daisaku Ikeda

There is something hugely civilized about allowing long pauses in a conversation. Very few people can stand that kind of silence.”

James Robertson , And the Land Lay Still

Patience is when you’re supposed to get mad, but you choose to understand.”

Unattributed

Even in a moment of anger or impatience, we can choose to be patient. That’s where a long-term practice of patience comes in handy.

Those speak foolishly who ascribe their anger or their impatience to such as offend them or to tribulation. Tribulation does not make people impatient, but proves that they are impatient. So everyone may learn from tribulation how his heart is constituted.”

Martin Luther

Our patience will achieve more than our force.”

Edmund Burke

What we execute with patience is what endures, not what we do with sudden action and little thought.

Perfect love is perfectly patient.”

Neal A. Maxwell,

All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience

An alternative to love is not hate but patience.”

Santosh Kalwar

This simple quote is short and sweet, making it perfect for inspirational posters.

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

Philip Stanhope

My dad said to me, 'work hard and be patient.' It was the best advice he ever gave me. You have to put the hours in.”

Simon Cowell

Time and patience quotes touch two sides of the same coin. Time is part of patience, and patience guides us through time.

Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.”

Thomas Huxley

On your team, would you rather have the most patient and persistent people, or the cleverest?

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.”

Samuel Johnson

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.”

John Quincy Adams

Keep reading for more quotes about perseverance.

Sometimes things aren't clear right away. That's where you need to be patient and persevere and see where things lead.”

Mary Pierce

It will happen but it will take time.”

John Bowlby

This super-short quote could fit perfectly on a banner for the break room.

We were planting seeds of change, the fruit of which we might never see. We had to be patient.”

Michelle Obama, Becoming

There's no advantage to hurrying through life.”

Masashi Kishimoto , Naruto Vol. 1

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.”

Robert Frost

A little humor is fun for the workplace, too. This could garner a giggle on a poster in the breakroom.

A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.”

Gertrude Jekyll

I am a slow walker, but I never walk back.”

Abraham Lincoln

There’s always a team member who works more slowly than others. Slow is not necessarily bad, though. Celebrate instead the employees who are the most diligent, dependable, and detail-oriented.

The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs…one step at a time.”

Joe Girard

When we get impatient because something is taking too long, we should remember that life waits on us a thousand times more than we wait on life.”

Laura Teresa Marquez

Patience is not passive waiting. Patience is active acceptance of the process required to attain your goals and dreams.”

Ray A. Davis

Define patience for your team as unwavering forward progress.

Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into patience with courageous patience.”

Hyman Rickover

This is a reminder for anyone who’s shared ideas at work that were looked over or put on the backburner. Keep bringing them up. Be courageously patient.

Life is full of challenges, but I always have the Three Ps: Passion, patience and persistence. And the fourth one is pizza.”

Butch Hartman

This would be the perfect quote on a flyer for a pizza place.

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.”

Margaret Thatcher

Bad decisions make good stories.”

Ellis Vidler

When browsing patience quotes, funny ones sometimes make an ironic case against virtues like patience.

You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.”

Arnold H. Glasow

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.”

Edith Sitwell

You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.”

Franklin P. Jones

This bait-and-switch quote seems like it’s going to be sweet, then it goes instead for sarcastic.

Sometimes if you have a difficult decision to make, just stall until the answer presents itself.”

Tina Fey

This isn’t quite the definition of patience, but it’s a funny take on how patience sometimes manifests.

Everything is out there if you know how to find it, and have the patience. I don't and haven't, but that's my problem.”

Tom Holt

Beware the fury of a patient man.”

John Dryden

This funny quote is also short, making it perfect for personalized gift mugs, t-shirts, or greeting cards.

Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”

A.A. Milne , Winnie-the-Pooh

Patience is the art of concealing your impatience.”

Guy Kawasaki

Everybody going to be dead one day, just give them time.”

Neil Gaiman , Anansi Boys

Dark humor likes to teeter on the edge of morbid.

Patience, he thought. So much of this was patience — waiting, and thinking and doing things right. So much of all this, so much of all living was patience and thinking.”

Gary Paulsen , Hatchet

All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue.”

Franz Kafka

Fortune knocks but once, but misfortune has much more patience.”

Laurence J. Peter

Do you have friends who would find this quote amusing? Share it on social and be sure to tag them.

You're trying to eat grass that isn't there. Why don't you give it a chance to grow?”

Richard Adams , Watership Down

This provides an instant “ah-ha” with a relatable visual. Imagine depicting this metaphor on a poster.

Endurance is patience concentrated.”

Thomas Carlyle

When patience is talked about in athletic training (especially endurance sports), this quote is especially handy.

Whoever is out of patience is out of possession of their soul.”

Francis Bacon

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

Leo Tolstoy , War and Peace

Hope is patience with the lamp lit.”

Tertullian

A short but hyper-visual quote like this one could make for a great poster or card.

Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.”

Moliere

Slow and steady wins the race.”

Aesop

Aesop’s tale of the Hare and the Tortoise is a childhood classic, and this message from the fable is a famed quote about patience.

Patience is a conquering virtue.”

Geoffrey Chaucer

Patience is the art of hoping.”

Luc de Clapiers

How many times do you see “patience” and “hope” mentioned in the same breath? The relationship between these two is enlightening.

Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A little personification of nature and patience, and this quote becomes instantly memorable.

Patience is the companion of wisdom.”

Saint Augustine

The secret of patience is to do something else in the meantime.”

Croft M. Pentz

This tongue-and-cheek take on patience could be the perfect message for friends in a social media post.

He that can have patience can have what he will.”

Benjamin Franklin

And sure enough, even waiting will end...if you can just wait long enough.”

William Faulkner

Imagine using this quote on a card of encouragement. The front of the card could bear the first part of the quote, then the inside reveals the second part.

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

Vera Nazarian,

The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration

This quote challenges the adage we’ve all heard: patience is a virtue. That truism never mentions how hard it is to practice patience, and this quote captures both the challenge and the glory.

Patience is the direct antithesis of anger.”

Allan Lokos,

Pocket Peace: Effective Practices for Enlightened Living

To learn patience is not to rebel against every hardship.”

Henri Nouwen