That quote—“The market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient”—really gets to the heart of what separates successful traders and investors from the rest.

Whether Warren Buffett actually said it or not, the sentiment rings true. The market doesn’t reward frantic moves or knee-jerk reactions. In fact, it often punishes them.

If you think about it, most losses come from acting on emotion—fear, greed, boredom, even a kind of restless optimism. Maybe you’ve seen it yourself: someone jumps into a trade because they’re afraid of missing out, or they bail out at the first sign of trouble, only to watch the stock rebound after they’re gone. It’s almost cliché, but it happens all the time.

Patience, on the other hand, is about sticking to your plan. It’s not just sitting on your hands and waiting for something to happen. It’s having the discipline to trust your research, your process, and your risk management.

Sometimes that means holding through uncomfortable periods, or resisting the urge to chase the latest hot stock. It’s rarely glamorous, and it can feel counterintuitive—especially when everyone else seems to be making moves.

But over time, the patient trader tends to come out ahead. They’re not immune to losses, of course. Nobody is. But they’re less likely to get swept up in the noise, and more likely to let their edge play out. Maybe that’s why so many seasoned investors talk about temperament being more important than intelligence.

So, if you’re building a strategy or just trying to improve your results, it’s worth asking: Am I being patient, or just hoping for a quick win? Sometimes, the hardest thing is to do nothing at all.