- English translation
Patience is a fine thing, but who is really willing to put up with it?
- Literal wording
Patience is good, but the one who accepts it?
- Meaning and lesson
The saying grants that patience is a genuine virtue, then turns on a 'but' to ask, almost rhetorically, who actually consents to it; it does not claim that only certain people are patient. Admiring endurance in principle is easy, while accepting the long wait and quiet suffering it demands is something few willingly do.
As a reply, the line pushes back gently against easy advice. The speaker does not dispute that the counsel is correct; instead, they signal that knowing the right course was never the problem, and that actually carrying the burden is where the real difficulty lies.
- When it is used
Suitable when someone is urged to wait or endure and answers with weary realism, conceding that patience is admirable while hinting that its cost is hard to accept. Fits informal, sympathetic exchanges rather than formal exhortation.
- Register
- colloquial
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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