Bear with evil and expect good.
Meaning: Enduring hardship with patience and moral steadiness attracts positive outcomes and rewards.
Origin: Recorded in A Dictionary of English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases, an undated collection published in London by Whittaker & Co. around 1880 and credited to Thomas Preston. Its earlier history hasn't been traced.
More proverbs about Challenge
- Beggars on horseback will ride to the devil. — Sudden wealth corrupts those unaccustomed to fortune, driving them toward ruin through ex…
- Begging is an ill trade on a fast-day. — Alms-giving diminishes on religious fast-days when even the charitable are themselves abs…
- Fear not the loss of the bell more than the loss of the steeple. — Don't obsess over minor possessions when greater structures—relationships, principles, li…
- The bird that can sing and will not sing, must be made to sing. — Talent unused is wasted potential; those capable of contributing must be compelled to ful…
- Who so blind as he that will not see? — Willful ignorance is the most complete blindness; refusing truth is worse than lacking it.
- Whether you boil snow or pound it, you will have but water from it. — Effort cannot change the fundamental nature of something inherently worthless or insignif…
From our idioms
- حبل الكذب قصير (ḥabl al-kadhib qaṣīr) — Lies never last; they are soon exposed.
- يد واحدة لا تصفق (yad wāḥida lā tuṣaffiqu) — Nothing is achieved without cooperation.
- الجمل ما يشوف عوجة رقبته (Al-jamal mā yshūf 'awjat raqabatuh) — People are blind to their own faults.