Ask any successful investor and they would likely tell you that to make a profit you have to take risks, practice patience, and trust the process. Perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of investing is trusting the process.

When progress isn’t immediately seen it’s easy to want to give up and lose faith. However, turning a profit takes time. It’s important to remember that investing takes patience and is far from a get-rich scheme. Thankfully, there are many great investors to look to that will help you trust the process and power through the required waiting period in investing. From advice from top investor Warren Buffett to wisdom from old proverbs, these 50 quotes will remind you that good investing takes time.

Quotes on the Importance of Patience in Investing

“Be patient. The watched stock never boils.”

1. “Investing should be more like watching paint dry or watching grass grow. If you want excitement, take $800 and go to Las Vegas.” ―Paul Samuelson

2. “The world is full of foolish gamblers and they will not do as well as the patient investors.” ―Charlie Munger

3. “Be patient. The watched stock never boils.” ―Peter Lynch

4. “It is my conclusion that the successful investor must have the patience to wait for the right moment, courage to buy or sell when the time arrives, and liquid capital.” ―Benjamin Roth

“Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

5. “Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”―Warren Buffett

6. “Investors who aspire to long-term success cannot afford the luxury of impatience [though they usually think the opposite is true].” ―Frank Martin

7. “Successful Investing takes time, discipline, and patience. No matter how great the talent or effort, some things just take time: You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.” ―Warren Buffett

8. “Consistency and patience are crucial. Most investors are their own worst enemies. Endurance enables compounding.”―Seth Klarman

“The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”

9. “The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.”―Warren Buffett

10. “Patience is one of the most valuable attributes in investing.”―Martin Zweig

Quotes on Waiting for the Right Time in Investing

11. “Throughout all my years of investing I’ve found that the big money was never made in the buying or the selling. The big money was made in the waiting.”―Jessie Livermore

12. “Throughout all my years of investing I’ve found that the big money was never made in the buying or the selling. The big money was made in the waiting.”―Jessie Livermore

“You don’t need perfect timing to achieve marvelous returns. Time in the market beats timing the market—almost always.”

13. “You don’t need perfect timing to achieve marvelous returns. Time in the market beats timing the market—almost always.”―Ken Fisher

14. “The rich invest in time, the poor invest in money.”―Warren Buffet

15. “The big profits I have made were through very long planning, waiting and watching.”―Philip Fisher

16. “It’s waiting for that helps you as an investor, and a lot of people just can’t stand to wait. If you didn’t get the deferred-gratification gene, you’ve got to work very hard to overcome that.”―Charlie Munger

17. “You don’t make money when you buy stocks. And you don’t make money when you sell stocks. You make money by waiting.”―Mohnish Pabrai

“Time is money says the proverb, but turn it around and you get a precious truth. Money is time.”

18. “Time is money says the proverb, but turn it around and you get a precious truth. Money is time.”―George Gissing

19. “I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up.”―James Rogers

20. “Happiness ensues when it is not pursued – investing is the same thing. Success occurs when you are willing to wait for opportunities.”―Mark Kingdon

21. “Good investing is a matter of waiting to see the opening and then moving with strength. Lao Tsu wrote, ‘He who knows how to be aggressive, and yet remains patient, becomes a receptacle for all of Nature’s lessons.”―Bennett Goodspeed

“In many ways, the stock market is like the weather in that if you don’t like the current conditions all you have to do is wait a while.

22. “In many ways, the stock market is like the weather in that if you don’t like the current conditions all you have to do is wait a while.” ―Low Simpson

Quotes on Trusting the Process in Investing

“Money grows on the tree of persistence.”

23. “Money grows on the tree of persistence.” —Japanese proverb

24. “Hold the Vision…drop the excuses…remember your why. Swerve around obstacles…trust the process. Happiness and success will find you.” —Karen Salmansohn

25. “Trust is like the air we breathe. When it’s present, nobody really notices. But when it’s absent everybody notices.”—Warren Buffett

“The single most important skill for being a good investor is to be very content with not doing anything for extended periods and that’s perfectly fine.”

26. “The single most important skill for being a good investor is to be very content with not doing anything for extended periods and that’s perfectly fine.”—Mohnish Pabrai

27. “Trust the process. Your time is coming. Just do the work and the results will handle themselves.” —Tony Gaskins

28. “When prosperity comes, do not use all of it.”—Confucius

29. “Invest for the long haul. Don’t get too greedy and don’t get too scared.”—Shelby M.C. Davis

30. “To be a successful business owner and investor, you have to be emotionally neutral to winning and losing. Winning and losing are just part of the game.”– Robert Kiyosaki

“What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end.”

31. “What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end.”—Old proverb

32. “The easiest way to manage your money is to take it one step at a time and not worry about being perfect.” – Ramit Sethi

33. “Put not your trust in money, put your money in trust”—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr

34. “Be open to and welcoming of unforeseen events because those unplanned moments are often the seeds of spectacular opportunities in your life.”—Pat Flynn

35. “The salient skill for an investor to master is being able to sit still, without tiring of sitting still, while recognizing the constant tug of an overconfident psyche.”—Allan Mecham

36. “One of the best rules anybody can learn about investing is to do nothing, absolutely nothing, unless there is something to do.”—James Rogers

37. “You can lose money very fast, in two months, but you very rarely make money very fast in the stock market. When I look back, my great stocks took a long time to work out.”—Peter Lynch

“If you invest nothing, the reward is worth little.”

38. “If you invest nothing, the reward is worth little.”―Richelle E. Goodrich,

39. “You gotta roll with the punches. I just haven’t felt very many punches, or I don’t choose to remember them, because I’m very focused on the future and getting to where I want.”—Cathie Wood

40. “Most of my big wins have been stocks in great companies that I just invested in and then ignored for a decade or longer.” —Scott Galloway

41. “You will be much more in control if you realize how much you are not in control.”—Benjamin Graham

42. “In chess, there is a term called zugzwang, which means that even though the ‘best’ move is to ‘not’ move, the game compels the player to do so, often putting him at a disadvantage. Investors are free to not move.”—Jim O’Shaughnessy

“If you want to succeed in investments, start early and try hard and keep doing it. All success comes that way, by and large.”

43. “If you want to succeed in investments, start early and try hard and keep doing it. All success comes that way, by and large.”—Charlie Munger

44. “Only the game, can teach you the game.”—Jesse Livermore.

45. “Progress always involves risk. You can’t steal 2nd base and keep your foot on 1st.”—Fred Wilcox

46. “To achieve what one percent of the world’s population has (Financial Freedom), you must be willing to do what only one percent dares to do. Hard work and perseverance of highest order.”—Manoj Arora

47. “Nothing happens without focus. Don’t try to do everything at once. Take it one step at a time.”—Dave Ramsey

“In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.”

48. “In investing, what is comfortable is rarely profitable.”—Robert Arnott

49. “Courage taught me no matter how bad a crisis gets … any sound investment will
eventually pay off.” — Carlos Slim Helu

50. “Faith, in the long run, is the most powerful force that drives investment decisions.”—Peter Bernstein