He that can stay obtains.

Here ‘stay’ means wait. The saying holds that the person who is able to wait is the one who eventually gets what they are after, while those who give up or settle early go without. By saying ‘can stay’, it treats patience as a capacity that not everyone has, and presents that capacity as a real advantage in reaching a goal.

The saying does not promise that waiting alone is enough, and it gives no way to tell a wait that will pay off from one that will not. It is misapplied when the goal is never going to arrive, or when the moment calls for action rather than patience. It also leaves aside whether a person can afford to wait: some people cannot hold out for long, and the saying does not account for that.

Its present-day currency is not established, but it might be offered as encouragement to someone tempted to give up too soon, such as a person waiting for a reply to an application, a seller under pressure to accept the first offer or a learner who wants quick results. It works best as support for a wait the person has already chosen. Said to someone who cannot afford to wait, or whose wait has no clear end, it may sound complacent.