Great ideas travel slowly, and for a time noiselessly, as the gods whose feet were shod with wool.
Interpretation
Great ideas often take time to be recognized, much like silent gods who walk softly.
In this quote, James A. Garfield expresses the notion that profound ideas do not always gain immediate recognition or attention. Like the gods who tread lightly, significant concepts may initially go unnoticed, requiring patience and persistence before they become appreciated and impactful in society.
In practice
In a motivational speech, to emphasize the need for patience in pursuing innovation.
Statistical science is indispensable to modern statesmanship. In legislation as in physical science it is beginning to be understood that we can control terrestrial forces only by obeying their laws. The legislator must formulate in his statutes not only the national will, but also those great laws of social life revealed by statistics.
I am trying to do two things: dare to be a radical and not a fool, which is a matter of no small difficulty.
Justice and goodwill will outlast passion.
Now more than ever the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption.
If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it.
Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.
I've learnt something from every failure. The products I helped design at the first two companies I worked for were utter failures. But now I know why.
Example is a bright looking-glass, universal and for all shapes to look into.
I'm always wary of the lessons of the past. There's a lot of past out there, and you can draw whatever lessons you want.
I prayed like a man walking in a forest at night, feeling his way with his hands, at each step fearing to fall into pure bottomlessness forever. Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart.
Think for yourself and question authority.
Men develop ideas and systems of explanation by absorbing past knowledge and critiquing and superseding it. Women, ignorant of their own history [do] not know what women before them had thought and taught. So generation after generation, they [struggle] for insights others had already had before them, [resulting in] the constant inventing of the wheel.
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