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“Patience is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude,—and the rarest, too.”

John Ruskin

Source
The Ethics of the Dust
Date
1866
Attribution
Source identified
Meaning

What does this quote mean?

Ruskin separates patience from mere persistence: fortitude is not only continuing to act, but also bearing delay, frustration and incomplete results without losing steadiness.

Source context

Where does it come from?

The Ethics of the Dust, Lecture IV, Project Gutenberg #4701. Ruskin immediately contrasts many persevering people with the rarer patient person and later insists that genuine patience is not necessarily passive or idle.

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