Meaning & Analysis
With sufficient patience, desired outcomes will arrive at the right time; what matters is waiting, not hurrying.
Insights
Right-time arrival
Treats events as ripening on their own schedule; patience aligns us with fruition so that when things come, they are ‘soon enough’—timely, not premature.
Delayed gratification
Urges restraint against impulsive grabbing; waiting accrues value—skills mature, opportunities clarify, and rewards compound for those who can endure delay.
Strategic non-action
Sometimes the wisest move is to pause; by holding position, we let noise pass, gather information, and preserve optionality until decisive action actually pays.
Trust over control
Patience shifts focus from forcing outcomes to stewarding the present; it cultivates confidence that diligent constancy outperforms anxious haste.
Kairos vs. speed
The proverb prizes kairos—opportune timing—over velocity. ‘Soon enough’ encodes sufficiency: the aim is ripeness, not earliness, a rebuke to hurry as a false virtue.
Patience cluster
It converses with fellows like ‘He that can have patience can have what he will’ and ‘Patience, time, and money accommodate all things,’ framing patience as a universal solvent for difficulty and delay.
Psychology of time
Humans discount the future, preferring smaller-sooner rewards; training patience counteracts this bias, converting waiting from felt loss into a tool for larger, later gains.
Moral economy of haste
Hurry often makes waste—half-baked deals, brittle solutions, scorched relationships. The saying recasts restraint as productive, not passive.
Limits and counterweights
Patience is not passivity: paired proverbs—‘Strike while the iron is hot’—remind us some windows close. The wisdom here is conditional: wait until the time is right, not forever.
Rhetorical Devices
Conditional structure
The ‘if we can have the patience’ clause makes the promise contingent, teaching that timing benefits depend on a practiced virtue.
Hyperbole
‘All things’ overstates to impress the scope of patience’s power, granting it near-universal efficacy.
Gnomic future
‘May come’ and ‘soon enough’ deliver a calm, proverbial assurance rather than a guarantee, giving the line oracular poise.
Antithesis (implied)
Sets patience against haste without naming haste, letting ‘soon enough’ quietly oppose ‘too soon.’
Euphonious balance
Parallel cadence (‘All things may come… if we can have…’) gives the sentence a steady, measured rhythm that mirrors patience itself.
Transcription
Quotations
All things may come time inough if we can haue the pacience to stay.
All things are to be overcome with patience.
All Things come to passe who can stay for them.
Cross References
Related Proverbs
Original Scan

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