Patience

Eleventh is patience. If one would make haste, let him first be certain he is not hurrying in the wrong direction. The demand for programs of speed on the grounds that “time is running out” more often than not prompts actions which preserve the very ideas we wish to replace. Time does not run out, for time is infinite. It is ourselves that run out, for we are finite. We run out of ideas and understanding and patience. And when in panic, if instead of restoring our own intellectual larders, we adopt the methods and tactics of our adversaries, we join their forces while thinking we are opposing them. If the achievement of individual liberty depends solely on an advancement in understanding the principles of liberty, then it follows that liberty cannot be ours to experience faster than understanding can be advanced. If, as individuals, we gain an understanding of liberty and lend every possible encouragement to others to do likewise,[5] there is little more that we can do in the way of speed, and we should realize this fact.