​“Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied’” (MLK, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail).
 
“Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity” (MLK, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail).
 
“But in general, when ancient Latin writers used the term patientia, they didn’t have heroes in mind; they were thinking of subordinates and victims. Patience seemed an appropriate attitude for people of no account who were on the receiving end of actions or experiences. For these people—powerless, poverty stricken, and often female--patientia was ignominious. Patience was the response of people who didn’t have the freedom to define their own goals or make choices. Notably patience was a response of slaves, for whom it was an inevitability, not a virtue.” (Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, p. 20).
 
“The earlier Christian tradition was based on an understanding of God’s work as manifested in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The word that summed this up for them was patientia (hypomonē in Greek) [patience]. In their patience-shaped perspective, history is safe in God’s generous hands. So people who worship God and follow Jesus do not need to control things; they do not rely on the power of the state to vindicate their point of view; they do not fret their brows or hurry; and they never impose their view by coercion and force. And somehow, spontaneously, carriers of the gospel show up—slave women, business people, people of no account—and the church grows, spottily, unsystematically, and by ferment” (Alan Kreider, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, 294–95).

“The earlier Christian tradition was based on an understanding of God’s work as manifested in the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The word that summed this up for them was patientia (hypomonē in Greek) [patience]. In their patience-shaped perspective, history is safe in God’s generous hands. So people who worship God and follow Jesus do not need to control things; they do not rely on the power of the state to vindicate their point of view; they do not fret their brows or hurry; and they never impose their view by coercion and force. And somehow, spontaneously, carriers of the gospel show up—slave women, business people, people of no account—and the church grows, spottily, unsystematically, and by ferment” (The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, pp. 294–295).