What makes this remarkable is King's refusal to establish a hierarchy of acceptable progress—crawling counts as much as flying, which cuts against our modern tendency to measure worth by speed and visibility. The quote isn't really about movement at all, but about the spiritual damage of *stopping*, of deciding your circumstances disqualify you from trying. Consider someone returning to school at fifty after a career setback: society whispers they're too late, but King insists the mere act of enrollment—however humble it appears—restores agency and dignity that despair had stolen.