Strictly speaking, one should not even rightly compare virginity to marriage because you cannot make a comparison between two things if one is good and the other evil.
Either we must speak as we dress, or dress as we speak. Why do we profess one thing and display another? The tongue talks of chastity, but the whole body reveals impurity.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the inconsistency between our words and actions, highlighting the need for alignment between how we express ourselves and how we present ourselves.
St. Jerome's quote points out the disparity between verbal expression and physical appearance, suggesting that we either align our speech with our dress or vice versa. It critiques the hypocrisy of claiming one set of values while embodying another, particularly focusing on the concept of chastity versus impurity, urging individuals to reflect on the sincerity of their professed beliefs through their actions.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about honesty, this quote can highlight the importance of living authentically.
More from St. Jerome
All quotes →Thank God I am deemed worthy to be hated by the world.
The Church was founded upon Peter: although elsewhere the same is attributed to all the Apostles, and they all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the strength of the Church depends upon them all alike, yet one among the twelve is chosen so that when a head has been appointed, there may be no occasion for schism.
Beauty when unadorned is adorned the most.
To ignore Scripture is to ignore Christ.
Those who persevere in sin are those who are held in abhorrence by God, but those who abandon the ways of sin are loved by the Lord.
Similar quotes
People, Reacher was certain about. Dogs were different. People had freedom of choice. If a man or a woman ran snarling toward him, they did so because they chose to. They were asking for whatever they got. His response was their problem. But dogs were different. No free will. Easily misled. It raised an ethical problem. Shooting a dog because it had been induced to do something unwise was not the sort of thing Reacher wanted to do.
If you want to call it that. But it is a very specific sort of magic. There's a magic you take from death. Something leaves the world, something else comes into it.
For, in truth, an image is only dead matter shaped by the craftsman's hand. But we have no sensible image of sensible matter, but an image that is perceived by the mind alone: God, who alone is truly God.
We turn skeletons into goddesses and look to them as if they might teach us how not to need.
All that I would like to be is human, having a share_x000D_ in a civilized, articulate and well-adjusted_x000D_ community where the mind is given its due_x000D_ but the body is not distrusted
Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.