Deep within the heart of every evangelist lies the wreck of a car salesman.
Interpretation
This quote humorously suggests that beneath the passion of an evangelist, there may exist a more mundane and less admirable past.
H. L. Menckenβs quote highlights the idea that many individuals with fervent beliefs or strong convictions may have started from more commercial or less noble beginnings. By comparing evangelists to car salesmen, he implies that their passionate zeal might mask a history of persuasion and salesmanship, challenging the notion of purity in their motivations and beliefs.
In practice
This quote can be used during a discussion about the motivations behind religious or ideological leaders.
I know a good many men of great learning-that is, men born with an extraordinary eagerness and capacity to acquire knowledge. One and all, they tell me that they can't recall learning anything of any value in school. All that schoolmasters managed to accomplish with them was to test and determine the amount of knowledge that they had already acquired independently-and not infrequently the determination was made clumsily and inaccurately.
It takes a long while for a naturally trustful person to reconcile himself to the idea that after all God will not help him
It is the theory of all modern civilized governments that they protect and foster the liberty of the citizen; it is the practice of all of them to limit its exercise, and sometimes very narrowly.
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
The cure for the evils of democracy is more democracy.
It is my conviction that no normal man ever fell in love, within the ordinary meaning of the term, after the age of thirty.
She looked at nice young men as if she could smell their stupidity.
Those of you who are not aware of my brilliant career as a stand up comic, I'm not aware of it either so we might well wonder what we're doing here.
MISDEMEANOR, n. An infraction of the law having less dignity than a felony and constituting no claim to admittance into the best criminal society.
Seeing a murder on television can help work off one's antagonisms. And if you haven't any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.
It's a lazy Saturday afternoon, there's a couple lying naked in bed reading Encyclopediea Brittannica to each other, and arguing about whether the Andromeda Galaxy is more 'numinous' than the Ressurection. Do they know how to have a good time, or don't they?
There are a hell of a lot of jobs that are scarier than live comedy. Like standing in the operating room when a guy's heart stops, and you're the one who has to fix it!
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.