How to Be Patient: Best Patience Quotes, Definitions & Tips

Patience is a virtue. It is also a skill you can choose to develop. It is the ability to wait for things. It isn’t a passive thing. It’s an active thing. It is the balance between the two extremes of impatience and complacency.

Patience is one of the qualities/skills for healthy relationships included in my Relationship Booster card set. 

What is Patience? Definition 

Patience is often labeled as a quality, virtue, or attribute. It is deserving of those labels, but it is important to realize that it is also a skill that you can develop. It isn't just something some people have naturally — though some people may find it easier than others do. 

Healthy patience helps you wait for things without just sitting around expecting everything to come to you or for positive change to happen without your participation. 

It allows for both delayed gratification and proactivity. 

“Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength.” ― Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

“Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind.” ― David G. Allen

What is Too Little Patience?

We're pretty familiar with what it looks like to have too little patience. It extracts a cost to ourselves, our ability to achieve things, and our relationships. 

Examples of what's on the too-little end of the patience continuum:

• impatience
• need for instant gratification
• frustration with people who need time to do something
• pushiness
• rushing things that need more time
• anxiety about things that need more time
• prematurely giving up on goals
• false urgency

"The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it." ―Arnold H. Glasow

What is Too Much Patience?

We don't as often talk about the downsides of being too much of something that is considered a virtue, but when patience is taken too far, it becomes unhealthy. Like too little patience, too much patience extracts a cost to ourselves, our ability to achieve things, and our relationships. 

Examples of what's on the too much end of the patience continuum:

• waiting too long
• complacency
• inaction
• not holding people accountable
• giving people too many chances to change
• waiting for things to just come to you rather than being proactive and trying to make things happen

"Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice." ― George Jackson

Patience and Perseverance: A Dynamic Duo 

Some qualities that we admire and appreciate balance each other out. For example, patience balanced by assertiveness can help you not wait too long for something to change before tactfully speaking up.

Some qualities, like patience and perseverance, work together. Perseverance can help you keep going while you are patient.   

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

"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish." ― John Quincy Adams

🟢➜ I talk more about patience and perseverance in this post: 6 Qualities for Building Resilience: Quotes & Tips

Be Patient With Progress: Trust the Process

Patience is the ability to wait well, trusting in the process and timing of life.

"Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown." ― Soren Kierkegaard

Dealing With Your Own Impatience: Emotional Regulation

Emotional regulation may be key to your ability to be patient when you feel impatient. 

“The biggest pitfall as you make your way through life is impatience. Remember that being impatient is simply a way of punishing yourself. It creates stress, dissatisfaction, and fear.” ―Susan Jeffers

"You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience." ―Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

"Patience is the art of concealing your impatience." ― Guy Kawasaki

"Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears."― Barbara Johnson

I teach my clients 12 quick relaxation techniques you can do in two minutes or less. They are a great way to cool your jets and get through impatient moments. Click here for a downloadable PDF worksheet to learn about these quick resets and customize them to be the most helpful for you. 

Patience is Born from Difficulties and Challenges

"We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world." ― Helen Keller

"There is something good in all seeming failures. You are not to see that now. Time will reveal it. Be patient." ― Swami Sivananda

🟢➜ Get further inspiration for dealing with mistakes and failures PLUS helpful how-tos, from this post: 36 Learning from Mistakes Quotes and Help Reframing Mistakes With CBT

Patience in Relationships Quotes

Sometimes our patience is about being patient with ourselves. Sometimes, it's about being patient with others.

"Love is patient. Love is kind." ― Corinthians, Bible

Patience helps you listen to your partner, friend, and co-worker ― a key to healthy relationships. 

"Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk." ― Doug Larson 

"Our patience will achieve more than our force." ― Edmund Burke

Patience is Power: Inspiring Quotes on Patience

Patience helps you achieve your goals.

"I'm patient." ― Michael Jordan

"If I have done the public any service, it is due to my patient thought." ― Isaac Newton

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet." ― Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"He that can have patience can have what he will." ― Benjamin Franklin

Help for Building Patience

Anxiety can make patience difficult to achieve. I've created many products to help people relieve their anxiety and build emotional and mental stress resilience. Click here to find out which of my recordings, worksheets, and workbooks are the best match for you. 

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