"Let thy step be slow and steady, that thou stumble not"
About this Quote
“Let thy step be slow and steady, that thou stumble not” is the kind of advice that sounds like moral housekeeping until you remember who’s giving it: Tokugawa Ieyasu, the warlord-statesman who outlasted rivals, survived shifting alliances, and built a shogunate that would govern Japan for more than 250 years. In his mouth, slowness isn’t timidity. It’s strategy.
The line’s intent is discipline-by-design: move deliberately, not because caution is virtuous in the abstract, but because the costs of error are existential. “Stumble” doesn’t mean mild embarrassment; it means political ruin, a lost province, an assassination, a family line erased. Ieyasu’s career is a case study in calibrated patience: enduring hostage years, conceding when necessary, waiting for conditions to ripen, then acting decisively at Sekigahara and afterward. The quote flatters restraint as a form of power, not a lack of it.
The subtext is governance. A state isn’t stabilized by dramatic gestures; it’s stabilized by repeatable habits, cautious reforms, and the refusal to gamble legitimacy. Read as instruction to retainers, it discourages impulsive heroics that create short-term glory and long-term instability. Read as personal creed, it’s a warning against the intoxicating speed of ambition.
The archaic “thy” cadence gives it a quasi-scriptural authority, as if patience were not merely prudent but ordained. That rhetorical move matters: it turns political realism into ethical common sense, the kind of maxim that can be repeated until it becomes culture.
The line’s intent is discipline-by-design: move deliberately, not because caution is virtuous in the abstract, but because the costs of error are existential. “Stumble” doesn’t mean mild embarrassment; it means political ruin, a lost province, an assassination, a family line erased. Ieyasu’s career is a case study in calibrated patience: enduring hostage years, conceding when necessary, waiting for conditions to ripen, then acting decisively at Sekigahara and afterward. The quote flatters restraint as a form of power, not a lack of it.
The subtext is governance. A state isn’t stabilized by dramatic gestures; it’s stabilized by repeatable habits, cautious reforms, and the refusal to gamble legitimacy. Read as instruction to retainers, it discourages impulsive heroics that create short-term glory and long-term instability. Read as personal creed, it’s a warning against the intoxicating speed of ambition.
The archaic “thy” cadence gives it a quasi-scriptural authority, as if patience were not merely prudent but ordained. That rhetorical move matters: it turns political realism into ethical common sense, the kind of maxim that can be repeated until it becomes culture.
Quote Details
| Topic | Japanese Proverbs |
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