What is the origin of the saying “patience is a virtue”?
From a phrases.org message board: From “Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings” by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996): “Patience is a virtue. The ability to wait for something without excessive frustration is a valuable character trait. The proverb has been traced back to ‘Piers Plowman’ (1377) by William Langland and is similar to the Latin, Maxima enim..patientia virtus (Patience is the greatest virtue) and the French, Patience est une grant vertu. (Patience is a great value.) Some ten years after Langland, Chaucer wrote in ‘The Canterbury Tales’ (1386) that ‘Patience is a high virtue.’ Sometimes followed by the wry rejoinder ‘but virtue can hurt you.’ First cited in the United States in 1724 in the ‘Works of Thomas Chalkley’ (1766)…
