Gandhi touches on something subtler than mere action versus talk: the peculiar ineffectiveness of eloquence when it asks others to change while the speaker remains comfortable. A parent who lectures endlessly about discipline while never following through teaches children that words are decoration, not commitment. The real sting lies in recognizing that a single honest attempt—stumbling through it, failing, trying again—carries more weight than a thousand perfectly reasoned arguments, because it admits the difficulty everyone already suspects and refuses the cheap authority of preaching from the sidelines.