Tao Te Ching
Patience
Quotes (78)
“Forward and backward, abyss on abyss, in danger like this pause at first and wait, otherwise you will fall into a pit.”
“My soul shall bear that also; for, by practice taught, I have learned patience, having much endured.”
“When a person is in turmoil, how can they find peace except by staying patient until the stream clears?”
“Because my great aim in life is to get on well with people, I chose Xanthippe for my wife because I knew if I could get on with her I could with anyone.”
“He who awaits his time, who submits
When his work is done,
In his life there is no room
For sorrow or rejoicing.”
“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.”
“Nothing great is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig... there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.”
“Patience is the companion of wisdom.” 
“Donning the impregnable armor of patience, I embarked in the vessel of my mind and confidently took possession of my body.”
“With the armor and weapons of patience and knowledge, what need is there for an iron bow and sharp weapons?”
“Desire makes slaves out of kings, and patience makes kings out of slaves.”
“Patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing. It is looking at the thorn and seeing the rose, looking at the night and seeing the day. Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full.”
“To bear with patience wrongs done to oneself is a mark of perfection, but to bear with patience wrongs done to someone else is a mark of imperfection and even of actual sin.”
“Slowly slowly O mind, everything in own pace happens, fruit arrives only in its season.”
“How poor are they that have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees?”
“Things are done quickly enough if done well. If just quickly done, they can be quickly undone.”
“The first great rule of life - to put up with things – is half of all wisdom… We often have to put up with the most from those on whom we most depend… Out of patience comes forth peace, the priceless boon that is the happilness of the world.”
“When people press for a reply, it is best to defer it... Long expected is highest prized.”
“When the mind clearly understand true and false, it awaits the right time to act with strength and harmony, serene and without pressure.”
“There is no greater impediment to progress in the sciences than the desire to see it take place too quickly.”
“People who know how to employ themselves, always find leisure moments, while those who do nothing are forever in a hurry.”
“Accustom yourself to regarding the world as a place of suffering, a sort of penal colony and expect the calamities, torments, and miseries of life as normal... this makes us see other people in their true light and reminds us of what is most important: tolerance, patience charity”
“Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.”
“Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.”
“It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.”
“I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. I feel as if this tree knows everything I ever think of when I sit here. When I come back to it, I never have to remind it of anything; I begin just where I left off.”
“Patience is a most necessary quality for business; many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.”
“I have offended many people, for as soon as I saw that they did not understand me, that was the end of the matter, I had to move on. I had no patience with people—aside from my patients. I had to obey an inner law which was imposed on me and left me no freedom of choice.”
“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart... live in the question.”
“You find yourself in your desire… wherever the creative power of desire is, there springs the soil’s own seed. But do not forget to wait.”
“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
“I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the back of a tree just as a butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out… I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life… and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled… It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of the wings should be a gradual process in the sun. Now it was too late… That little body is, I do believe, the greatest weight I have on my conscience. For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.”
“We elders must find it in our souls to be patient with our children, to hear them fondly even when they rant to recognize that their wild intransigence has spurred some remedial action in legislative chambers, and in administrative halls.”
“A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.”
“Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.”
“If you want your life to truly transform, you do this by just staying with the mess. You stay in it. A lot of practice is just sheer persistence and patience with the confusion.”
“You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more.”
“Patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions: hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear. If you don't give way to the seven, you're patient, then you'll soon understand all manner of things and be in harmony with Eternity.”
“The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.” 
“There is no substitute for hard work, 23 or 24 hours a day. And there is no substitute for patience and acceptance”
“It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.”
“Impatience knows no limits: as soon as we learn to walk we want to sign up for the Olympics.”
“Impatience knows no limits: as soon as we learn to walk we want to sign up for the Olympics.”
“When one realizes that our many thoughts of anger and desire… are devoid of any self-nature, everything becomes a land of gold.
Patience is the antidote to anger, a way to learn to love and care for whatever we meet on the path.”
“It’s okay. Everything is okay… Don’t rush; everything is going to be okay… Just cool it. You don’t have to do a complete job, all at once. If you go too far, if you are too hungry, you could become a cosmic monster. That message is very courageous, but very few people have the courage to say that.”
“Now all you can do is wait. Like the ebb and flow of tides. No one can do anything to change them. When it is time to wait, you must wait.”
“People devote a lot of energy to thinking about things. Whether they want to or not. Yet in the end we all just have to wait—only time can tell how events play out. The answers lie ahead.”
“it is amazing what feats of organization our government can accomplish—if you don't mind waiting until it's too late”
“Dean wonders where his own anger and contempt have gone. Time's a fire extinguisher, he thinks.”
“The only problem is that we get so caught up in the ups and downs of life that we don't take the time to pause and notice what we already have.”
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