Positive Psychology: Patience is greatest of all virtues

Friday, November 26, 2010

Patience is greatest of all virtues

Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.
William Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure", Act 1 scene 4
English dramatist & poet (1564 - 1616)

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

William Shakespeare

Be great in act, as you have been in thought.
William Shakespeare

How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees.

William Shakespeare

Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.

~David March

Patience is the greatest of all virtues.
Cato the Elder (234 BC - 149 BC)

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.
Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)

The fates have given mankind a patient soul.
Homer (800 BC - 700 BC), The Iliad

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.
Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
Margaret Thatcher (1925 - ), in Observer April 4, 1989

There will be a time when loud-mouthed, incompetent people seem to be getting the best of you. When that happens, you only have to be patient and wait for them to self destruct. It never fails.

~David March

Patience is the companion of wisdom.
Saint Augustine (354 AD - 430 AD)

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.
Saint Francis de Sales (1567 - 1622)

You must first have a lot of patience to learn to have patience.
Stanislaw J. Lec (1909 - 1966), "Unkempt Thoughts"

Patience is the best remedy for every trouble.
Titus Maccius Plautus (254 BC - 184 BC),

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. God is awake.
Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885)

How poor are they who have not patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees.
William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

Positive Psychology given credence by Academia:

Positive psychology is the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Commentators on the subject Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, note that:

"The field of positive psychology at the subjective level is about valued subjective experiences: well-being, contentment, and satisfaction (in the past); hope and optimism (for the future); and flow and happiness (in the present).

At the individual level, it is about positive individual traits: the capacity for love and vocation, courage, interpersonal skill, aesthetic sensibility, perseverance, forgiveness, originality, future mindedness, spirituality, high talent, and wisdom.

At the group level, it is about the civic virtues and the institutions that move individuals toward better citizenship: responsibility, nurturance, altruism, civility, moderation,tolerance, and work ethic."