A gift long waited for is sold, not given. [ Proverb ]

The best men are not those who have waited for chances, but who have taken them, besieged the chance, conquered the chance, and made the chance their servitor. [ Chapin ]

He that waits for repentance waits for that which cannot be had as long as it is waited for. It is absurd for a man to wait for that which he himself has to do. [ Nevins ]

When the great Kepler had at length discovered the harmonic laws that regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, he exclaimed: Whether my discoveries will be read by posterity or by my contemporaries is a matter that concerns them more than me. I may well be contented to wait one century for a reader, when God Himself, during so many thousand years, has waited for an observer like myself. [ Macaulay ]

I was walking in the street, a beggar stopped me, — a frail old man. His inflamed, tearful eyes, blue lips, rough rags, disgusting sores . . . oh, how horribly poverty had disfigured the unhappy creature! He stretched out to me his red, swollen, filthy hand. He groaned and whimpered for alms. I felt in all my pockets. No purse, watch, or handkerchief did I find. I had left them all at home. The beggar waited and his out-stretched hand twitched and trembled slightly. Embarrassed and confused, I seized his dirty hand and pressed it. Don't be vexed with me, brother; I have nothing with me, brother. The beggar raised his bloodshot eyes to mine; his blue lips smiled, and he returned the pressure of my chilled fingers. Never mind, brother, stammered he; thank you for this — this, too, was a gift, brother. I felt that I, too, had received a gift from my brother. [ Ivan Tourgueneff ]