On preferring the end to the start
“Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”
Beginnings are flattering. They cost nothing yet, they are full of possibility, and they let a person feel changed before anything has changed.
The writer prefers the end — the unremarkable part, where the thing is finished and no one is watching. The patient spirit is set against the proud one not as gentleness against force, but as the capacity to stay against the appetite for the opening move.