Life & Wisdom Quote by Ernest Bramah

At the moment a path stops behaving predictably, Bramah advises you to shrink your stride. It reads like a pocket maxim, but it’s really a stance toward uncertainty: when visibility collapses, ambition should be scaled to perception. The road’s “abrupt” bend isn’t just a physical curve; it’s the narrative turn where plans, pride, and momentum become liabilities. “Take short steps” is almost comically practical, yet that practicality is the point. It denies the romance of bold leaps and replaces it with a disciplined humility that still moves forward.

Bramah, best known for the Kai Lung stories and their mock-classical “Chinese” storytelling voice, often worked in the space between proverb and parody. This line carries that double register. On one level, it sounds like the kind of antique wisdom you’d find in a framed calligraphy scroll: neat, quotable, faintly moral. Underneath, it’s a quiet jab at Western self-mythology about progress as a straight line. Bends happen; pretending otherwise is childish. Short steps become a strategy against the ego’s favorite mistake: confusing speed with control.

The intent isn’t timidity. It’s calibration. Bramah’s imperative doesn’t tell you to stop, only to adjust your scale to the conditions. In modern terms, it’s risk management disguised as etiquette: you keep moving, but you move as if the world is allowed to surprise you. That’s why it works. It makes prudence feel like wisdom, not fear.