Sayings/Patience

Sayings based on patience. Select a saying for more details. Also try Patience Sayings Quiz.

A watched pot never boils

If you want to heat water until it boils, and you watch it while you wait, then it seems to take a very long time. In the same way, anything that we wait for with eager attention seems to take a very long time: like waiting for someone to arrive, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for a letter to come.

All things are difficult before they are easy

The implication is that we should be patient with learning, and with learners. It takes time to learn to do things. What seems easy to us now may have been difficult at first.

Beware the fury of a patient man

The implication is that the anger of people who are normally slow to anger is, when it eventually comes, terrible.

Everything comes to him who waits

Patient people eventually receive all things.

First things first

1) Be patient: do things in the logical order. 2) Do the most important things before the less important things.

Patience is a virtue

The ability to wait for something without getting angry or upset is a valuable quality in a person.

Patience surpasses learning

1) The ability to wait for a long time without getting angry is even better than education. 2) the capacity to accept delay without getting upset will achieve more than study in the end

Rome wasn't built in a day

All things take time to create. And great things like the city of Rome take a very long time. So we shouldn't expect to accomplish something or achieve success immediately.

They also serve who only stand and wait

We all have a place in this world and we all perform a function, regardless of our ability or disability. The word order of this sentence may make it more difficult to understand. In normal English it would be something like: "They (those people) who only stand and wait, also serve."

We must learn to walk before we can run

We have to be patient when learning. Babies crawl before they walk. And children walk before they run. We cannot do difficult tasks before we can do easy tasks.
These are English sayings and proverbs about patience, which is the capacity to accept delay or trouble, and to wait for a long time without getting angry or upset.

Also try Patience Sayings Quiz.

Contributor: Josef Essberger