Cunning requires patience.

Meaning: This means that using skill and deceit to achieve one's goals often requires being patient and waiting for the right moment. It's like saying, To outsmart someone, you need to be able to wait for the perfect opportunity.

Choice of Words: Cunning means having or showing skill in achieving one's ends by deceit or evasion. Requires means that something is needed or essential. Patience means the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. In this context, the sentence suggests that being cunning involves being patient to achieve one's goals.

Alternative Expressions

Patience is needed for cunning.

Meaning: This means the same as the first sentence, but it emphasizes that patience is a necessary ingredient for cunning.

Choice of Words: Patience means waiting for something without getting upset or tired. Is needed means that you must have something to do something else. Cunning means clever or tricky, like a sly fox. When you put them together, "Patience is needed for cunning" means that if you want to be clever or tricky, you need to be able to wait and not get impatient.

To be cunning, you need patience.

Meaning: This means the same as the first two sentences, but it focuses on the fact that you need patience to be cunning.

Choice of Words: To be means to exist or to have a certain quality. Cunning means clever or tricky, like a sly fox. You need means that you must have something to do something else. Patience means waiting for something without getting upset or tired. When you put them together, "To be cunning, you need patience" means that if you want to be clever or tricky, you need to be able to wait and not get impatient.

Related Expressions