Patience

Patience is the test of character, courage, and understanding. It is
not the desire of the wise to build hastily, but rather, to build well.
"Psychic shysters" will go out of business when neophytes in
metaphysics understand the words of the Greek philosopher who
said, "make philosophy thy existence." The old sage did not say
"thy life work," or "thy trade" or "thy profession," or "thy effort
for a certain number of years." He used the term "thy existence"
to imply that the life of wisdom goes on from incarnation to
incarnation, becoming a part of the very self , transcending all 
limitations of time and space. Students of the Ancient Wisdom 
will still be students a million years from now, for as all life is a 
process of achieving, never consummated by ultimate achievement, 
so philosophy is a process of ever learning, an experience to which 
there is no conceivable end. The impatient novice tries a new 
system of "development" when "illumination" fails to arrive after a 
few months of study, but the soul that is wise with patience, which 
has risen above these illusions, rejoices in the perception of some 
small improvement at the end of many years of patient living.

"Patience" pages 51-52 from Words to the Wise   - Manly P Hall